Reaction from fear, from loss, from shock, is as natural as jerking up a hand to ward off a blow, or striking back when struck
And despite our horror at the recent killing of more than 6000 [NOTE: This number proved to be about double the actual toll], mostly non-military, citizens by a group of mostly unknown zealots, the number is not a staggering death toll at this moment in history. The overwrought reaction that has been pumped up by government officials from the president on down, and amplified by news media eager to sell papers, magazines and advertising on the airwaves and Internet, is really no different than fear of sharks or fear of large rocky objects in space. It is trumped up fear, packaged and sold for gain.
If violent death of innocents deeply offended us there would have been a hue and cry over our well-documented intentional bombardment of unarmed Iraqi soldiers and civilians who were retreating after the Gulf war. (They were headed home along a road our military had instructed them to follow.) If gruesome death offended we would have reacted viscerally to reports of U.S. Army bulldozers burying Iraqi soldiers alive as they tried to surrender in that same conflict. This is to say nothing of the estimated million deaths caused by our sanctions against that country, which former Secretary of State Madeleine Allbright stated, “are worth the cost.”