When Maxims Mislead

NEW YORK, MADRID, LONDON: TERRORISM STRIKES ANEW.”

Versions of this headline adorned many of the world’s newspapers on July 8, the day after the explosions in London. They didn’t mention either Afghanistan or Iraq. Weren’t—aren’t—the bombings there also terrorist attacks, which in the case of Iraq occur daily? Isn’t it always, or almost always, the working class that suffers casualties in these attacks and in war? Don’t they deserve the same respect and the same compassion as the victims of any expression of disdain for human life?

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence of the United States affirmed that all men are created equal. Then a few years later the first Constitution refined this notion, establishing that for the purposes of the census, each black would be counted as three-fifths of a person. What fraction of a person are Iraqis counted as today?

Some people are more equal than others? So they say