A day after 33 people were killed in the Virginia Tech shooting, 157 people died in a car bombing in Iraq. The former involved a disturbed young man seemingly hell bent on killing; the latter, suicide bombers, also hell bent on killing. If the words evil, senseless and bewildering were to be used to describe the former, they too apply to the latter. We know four of the Virginia Tech 33 were professors – the others students; we know nothing of the 157 in Iraq. We can put faces and names to those who died in Blacksburg, but there are no Facebook accounts or Myspace profiles from where we can learn about the lives of those who were also cut short by senseless violence a few thousand miles away.

It seemed unbecoming, almost, to see US President George W Bush addressing the memorial service at Virginia Tech by decrying violence; and yet he himself is a proponent of the use of violence as a measure to ‘solve issues’. Case in point – the US offer to use ‘a display of might’ on Iran during the recent British hostage crisis. Britain’s anomalous rejection of such an offer came as a welcome surprise. The sour taste in my mouth appears not to be in isolation – Sandy Sands of OpEdNews.com reckons Bush would be the last person she’d want at her son’s funeral.

Paul Campos steps it up further by arguing, how much worse is the Virginia Tech shooting compared to Iraq?. It may sound disrecpectful to those in mourning in Virginia, but just because there are no Friendster testimonials from which the Iraqi dead can be learnt about, hang your head in shame if you think just because you know the names of the victims, they have more of a right to be mourned. But faceless victims are easier to forget, perhaps not even mourned as chances are, their loved ones too, perished together with them.

Overplaying the hurt factor when one’s own is aggrieved isn’t anything new – while part of the British public gaped in horror at the ‘torture’ that their 15 servicemen endured under Iranian capture, many were quick to point out that British servicemen in Iraq were never shy of using physical torture on their captives, either. At least all 15 British servicemen were released safe and sound – and few thousand quid richer. Baha Mousa was released in a body bag, and his murderers have yet to be brought to justice.

When was a life not worth a life?

In trying to understand the motives of campus killer Cho Seung-Hui, I contemplated the mindset of those backed into a corner. I once went through an episode where my desperation to escape was so paramount, I considered driving straight into a lorry on my back back from Muadzam so that I could be sufficiently injured to warrant myself more time away from the place. Only the possibility that I would not be merely injured, but would have died, stopped me – I have enough sins without adding suicide to the list. But even in my bleak moments I never wanted to hurt anyone else – even those who were partly responsible for my state of mind then. Nobody owed me anything, I thought, and I owed myself everything.

Cho’s ranting video suicide note, aired on NBC, placed blame on everyone but himself; but more than that, what gave rise to the notion that if you’re not happy with someone, killing them should solve it? That’s pretty rich, isn’t it – to think so highly of oneself that everyone else deserves to die if they do not fit your plans? Clearly a sign of mental disturbance; delusions of grandeur are not uncommon among those with conditions such as bipolar. But also disturbingly, this is the message the American government is sending via its foreign policy: when it was useful, they were friends with Saddam. As he became a function of their grievances, ah well…let’s bomb his country. Dead civilians? Ah.. collateral damage. They had a point to make. Surely, one cannot accept that Cho’s victims are collateral damage to his yet unspoken of mission?

This cartoon from the Times’ yesterday seemed to have the same idea:

Dubya