JPost: Ten killed in suicide bus bombing

Another act of targeted mass-murder on a Jerusalem City bus. Another Palestinian indoctrinated in the culture of hate and death is sent out to destroy, and maim, and mutilate. Who had their life shattered today? Who's loved-one was destroyed? Have we lost more people who could have taught us about what it means to live as a human being? We have. That is a part of the loss we all suffered today.

You can watch a video of what the aftermath of such a bombing looks like here...if you've got the stomach for it. Pieces of bodies, shredded flesh - barely recognizable, hard to distinguish from so much shredded and bloodied cloth...is that a body part there on the ground? Or just a discarded backpack? Are those puddles blood, or just a bit of motor-oil?

A hand is there on the ground, shredded flesh trailing it like a horror-movie zombie's clothing - except it isn't cloth, it's flesh. Is this a Halloween prop someone forgot to clean up? No, it is real. A man is slumped over in his seat, struck dead on the spot. You can see his sneakers and bare leg...it's warm in Jerusalem, after all. Do the relatives recognize the pieces? Who's cell phone is that on the ground? Did the owner survive? Will he come looking for it, or was he talking on it nearby when the bomber performed for his people's accolades? Is that a child's school work blowing in the breeze?

I watch the cameraman walk slowly around the site and imagine that he looks down and sees he's standing on a piece of flesh. You wouldn't even know - so easy to mistake for a bit of debris blown out by the explosion. That's how bad it is.

All of this is just one tragedy among many, just one more description of the carnage that could result from any explosion anywhere. The bomb aimed at exploding an SS battalion encamped in a French city might create some of the same images. Both "sides" of the conflict could sit and compare pictures and video of horror and the layman wouldn't be able to tell the difference. But if these bones could speak...

...they'd cry out for context. They'd demand, they do demand that you understand why this happened, that not all carnage is the same, that the images are the end result, not the cause.

The man who did this, the PA policeman - and there are those who don't want you to know that, who don't want you to have the context, as Honest Reporting tells us, only Reuters out of all of the major media (no link yet) intentionally ommitted (it can only be intentional) a reference to the man's profession - that blew himself up today, did what he did not as an act of desperation, but as an act of intent and strategy. (As an aside, you know, of course, that the PA Police were armed by Israel as part of the Oslo Accords.) A predictable result of the culture of death he comes from - a product of depravity so divorced from the average American's realm of experience that we can scarcely understand it. In fact, most of us don't. Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook call it an act of Aspiration, not desperation. It's difficult to fathom in our society, where we protect our children so completely that reviewers often complain that animated Disney features are too violent. Some of the child-victims, like Walid Shoebat even escape and tell us their tale of mental torture, but is anybody listening? It is like tales of the Warsaw Ghetto before the War - too terrible to believe, as believing would demand we take action.

I can tell you one thing, if New York buses were to start exploding, and we could find out where the perpetrators, or the even the inspiration for the acts were coming from, there'd be a few cruise missiles launched - as an appetizer. We wouldn't put up with it for one minute, and we wouldn't wait arround to debate about anyone's victimhood, or their background, or their history, or the injustices their ancestors in the third generation suffered. We'd protect ourselves and our children first, and we'd do it hard, and we'd do it fast, and we'd do it completely, and then we'd let the historians deconstruct the tale later, and leave it to the Leftists of the future to convince us we should feel guilty.

At least there would be an us around to feel the guilt.

But it's amazing, tomorrow, or even now, as I type this, Israeli decision-makers are sitting around in committee, deciding on a measured response, weighing the dangers to civilians, getting opinions on International Law, and worrying over what measures the world will accept.

That would be us. We're the world, as well as all those other countries with an opinion to offer and no damn dog in the fight and no child in the crosshairs. As if it's any of our business we'll do our part to keep prolonging this. And many of us will condemn whatever response comes. Rather than being in awe, in awe of the poise and self-control it must take to bring whatever response comes, far less than we would do were our positions reversed, we will tut-tut while their dead lie shredded on the pavement and the murderer's people put up posters in his honor.

If my friend were to come to me, bloody and beaten, asking what he should do, I'd tell him...no...I'd demand that next time he at least try to defend himself. Instead, our friend is beaten before our eyes and we tie one hand behind his back and kick him out the door.