I was just as shocked as anybody to find out about the explosions in London. It hit me pretty close to home, though, because I've walked those streets and ridden on the buses and the tube. London felt like a second home to me while I lived there, and its always difficult to learn something disasterous has happened at home. It reminded me in a small way of the feeling I got when, in an extremely remote area of the Philippines where I was the only American for miles, I found out about 9/11.
It hurts me to see what hatred and intolerance can do. Man's capacity to destroy himself is a painful concept to see acted out at the cost of innocent lives. No doubt we will only see more violence in the years to come, for violence begets violence in a terrible cycle. I only pray the pain we feel at being attacked doesn't turn us into the very thing we are fighting. The last five years have given us new meaning to the word "tragic."
It hurts me to see what hatred and intolerance can do. Man's capacity to destroy himself is a painful concept to see acted out at the cost of innocent lives. No doubt we will only see more violence in the years to come, for violence begets violence in a terrible cycle. I only pray the pain we feel at being attacked doesn't turn us into the very thing we are fighting. The last five years have given us new meaning to the word "tragic."
Comments
What I meant to say is simply this: the pain we feel at being attacked can turn to hatred, and we cannot give into hatred, or else we may defeat the terrorists but lose who we are. It is hatred that drives the terrorists to do what they do; hatred and a complete disregard for rule of law. We should not give into hatred and we should at all times and in all places uphold rule of law like the civilized nation we are. I am concerned by the growing number of Americans who think that we should wipe out Muslims, enact racial profiling, and ignore international and US laws and norms in our attempts to defend ourselves. We must be careful. The ends do not justify the means. We are not terrorists.
That's all I'm saying.