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    CorpsegoddessLauren Evans
    7/03/16 8:46pm

    I really, really, REALLY hate it when the media does this bullshit—”including X amount of children”. It’s insulting to the other people who died—”Sorry you’re dead, but it’s not as tragic as it would be if you were a kid.”

    /rant

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      eradicate4Corpsegoddess
      7/03/16 9:00pm

      I don’t think it’s insulting at all, and it is more tragic. They barely got a chance to live their lives before it was taken from them.

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      Corpsegoddesseradicate4
      7/03/16 9:05pm

      And the other people had been living their lives for years with loves, relationships, connections, hopes, and dreams—and all that was taken from them. So that’s less tragic than a kid?

      It’s not a misery contest.

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    HudsonGreensLauren Evans
    7/03/16 2:45pm

    Murdering families that are breaking their Ramadan fast doesn't sound very Islamic.

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      BlondeGoddessHudsonGreens
      7/03/16 3:06pm

      Actually, IS proclaimed at the beginning of Ramadan, that suicide bombers would score extra martyr points during this period :-(

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      puzzlepieceHudsonGreens
      7/03/16 3:42pm

      Sadly these jackasses have appointed themselves arbiters of who is or is not a good Muslim. So they’ve basically declared every Muslim who doesn’t buy their murderous bullshit to be ‘as bad’ as any old western infidel, and worthy of death. Oh and if they accidentally murder someone innocent allah will fix it all in the next life so no harm done! Forget that Islam forbids the death of innocents in war and also suicide, OH WELL! THEY’R THE TRUE MUSLIMS!!

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    QVTLauren Evans
    7/03/16 2:36pm

    RIP Anonymous Iraqi children, women, men. I’m sorry we, as bystanders, are not able to know your names and stories. I’m thinking of yous here in the western world. I cannot imagine living in a place where this is a real, constant fear. RIP.

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      pileofashesQVT
      7/03/16 4:17pm

      I have wished more than once that victims of these sorts of attacks in Muslim-majority countries would get the same coverage that we give to victims of domestic terror attacks. Show us their pictures. Tell us their names and their stories. Let us cry over these murdered children the way we cried over the murdered children in Newtown. I hate those stories insofar as they always make me incredibly sad, but I think they’re very important. This country has such a serious problem with othering and demonizing Muslims (and especially Middle Eastern Muslims) as a whole, especially during this election cycle, and I think hearing the stories of the people murdered in these bombings might help to remind us that most Muslims are just regular people doing their shopping or watching a soccer game with their kids on a Saturday night, and they have even more reason to hate ISIS than we do.

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      schuretteQVT
      7/03/16 4:18pm

      I think not knowing their names and stories is part of a larger issue. I remember after Paris reading the stories about so many of those who died - now after Orlando celebrities are reading out everyone’s name, videos are shown on various news outlets, interviews with family members. It makes it more real and personal - we don’t have to connect to just numbers. We can connect on a personal level and the personal tragic loss. If it happens in a Western country mind you. Elsewhere these deaths are just a statistic - a side note

      I don't know. I try to not be part of the problem and post about it on my own social media accounts but it feels so futile when a picture of my kid gets 100s of likes but posts on this stuff 2 or 3. I genuinely don't know how to change it how to get people more involved. It feels futile and like a never ending cycle of violence that we forever witness and forever do nothing about.

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    Surprise! HippopotamusLauren Evans
    7/03/16 7:11pm

    I worked in Baghdad (development aid worker) for a few years, and these sorts of bombings with high death tolls were relatively commonplace. By the time I left, they were increasingly rare, and I truly believe as I boarded my last flight out of Iraq that things were on the upswing. My then-boyfriend (now husband) and I said maybe one day we’d be able to bring our future kids to Baghdad to meet our Iraqi colleagues and see where mom and dad had met, and the kids would never believe this had been such a dangerous place.

    All the Iraqis I knew were good people with a great sense of humour and spines of steel who loved their families just as much as we do. One of my former colleagues just posted on Facebook a beautiful photo of a smiling man, woman, and young child. They were friends of his. The entire family was killed in the bombing.

    I don't have any particular point except that I'm devastated for Iraq and its people. They deserve so much better.

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      MelissamacheteSurprise! Hippopotamus
      7/03/16 7:38pm

      Thank you for sharing. So many of us in America lack a personal connection to places like Baghdad and Dhaka, I believe sharing stories like this are really important. It isn't just some place on the map you don't intend to ever visit. They are families just like yours and mine and are equally important.

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      WheelerguySurprise! Hippopotamus
      7/04/16 1:58am

      The biggest positive that I can extract here is that you have known Iraqis better than most people who like to deride them, or at least are aloof to whatever they experience, which is exceedingly rare to see.

      Sometimes you just have to be there to really know who they are, what they do, what they have to endure. It’s impossible to take every single Awful American to war zones, refugee camps or cities like this, even if you do it in shifts of about 500 people, but I am very much happy to know that, yes, there is still empathy in people.

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    Last Burner, I SwearLauren Evans
    7/03/16 2:37pm

    I don’t think ISIS has to claim responsibility for terror attacks anymore. It’d be a bigger surprise if they claimed they weren’t responsible.

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      TakahashiLast Burner, I Swear
      7/03/16 10:26pm

      Exactly. I bet they could start taking credit for any bad thing that happened, and they’d get credit for it.

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      puncha yo bunsTakahashi
      7/03/16 11:22pm

      We could get a morbid sort of “Thanks ISIS” meme going

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    Marlene FreaktrickLauren Evans
    7/03/16 2:49pm

    Heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking.

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      QVTLauren Evans
      7/03/16 2:41pm

      Serious question: between ISIS, the Iraqi government, and the U.S., which group does an average Muslim person, in the States, or overseas, despises more? I get the sense that the average Muslim in the Middle East is stuck between picking one ally they hate (the U.S.), or a corrupt government, and a murderous religious fanatical terrorist group. Any Middle Easterner can comment?

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        CantthinkofoneQVT
        7/03/16 3:08pm

        I don’t think westerners understand how much our countries make up our identity. it’s like a part of our genotype, so saying we hate our countries always comes with an attached sadness and reservoirs of hope. I think most of us love America but are salty about the state of affairs in the Middle East and the institutionalized insubordination in the M.E after American occupation. And I’m sure nearly every Muslim fucking hates daesh, they are a group who are just unequivocally abhorrent and ruined a country that we loved dearly.

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        ZeeniaQVT
        7/03/16 3:27pm

        Not an Arab but I have relatives in places which get attacked by U. S drones on a regular basis. Also have relatives in places which have been recently attacked by ISIS. Most people only feel a helpless seething hatred for the latter but this is new. For a long time America was the devil until they actually looked the devils in the eye.

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      Reggie "Reginald" LedeuxLauren Evans
      7/03/16 2:55pm

      Not to be a guy that uses movie quotes upon reflecting on real-world tragedy, but Heath Ledger’s Joker speech about people dying in dangerous places being “all part of the plan” comes to mind. I truly believe we as westerners have it in us to be outraged and sad and angry at this, but my feeing is it won't happen on a grand scale or move anyone to do anything really meaningful. I don't know. I just want this to stop.

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        Vox PopulistReggie "Reginald" Ledeux
        7/03/16 4:11pm

        There are no quick and easy solutions to “fix this”. ISIS is a direct and inevitable result of American foreign policy in the Middle East, especially the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent mass discharge of the Iraqi army and police forces that the Bush administration pushed against the advice and begging of every foreign policy expert in the region. Those disgruntled army and police commanders formed the officer corps of ISIS.

        But that knowledge doesn’t help anyone in the here and now. What’s done, is done.

        The reason why they’re switching tactics to random terrorist attacks all over the globe is that they’re losing the ground war in Iraq and Syria, having lost 40 % of their occupied territory (and with it, the revenue stream from selling oil and plunder) since 2015 alone. It’s a strategy born out of desperation, but nonetheless a very effective one. There is no way to protect people against these attacks all around the globe. Even when we thwart nine out of ten plots, there’s plenty of suicide bombers willing the deeds, so they don’t care if they have to sacrifice nine men for every one who succeeds and blows dozens of people to hell. They still come out on top in the casualty statistics.

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        BenjaminSmuttinsVox Populist
        7/03/16 7:32pm

        ^^ this is the most terrifying part. People who believe that this world holds nothing for them, and are willing to die in a solo suicide attack are very, very difficult to stop. The actions of the US and their allies created many, many of these people.

        I didn’t support a war in Iraq or Afghanistan in 2001. But what I did or didn’t believe fifteen years ago doesn’t fix what was done, and as you said, what is done, is done. The real question is what to do now? And I have no answers. And that makes me frustrated, sad, angry and guilty.

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      VinLauren Evans
      7/03/16 9:36pm

      Disgusting and sad and senseless.

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        chocolatechipcookiesforbreakfastLauren Evans
        7/03/16 2:47pm

        This is heartbraking.

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