The Difference Between Baghdad And Brussels
By Tom Engelhardt
26 March, 2016
Countercurrents.org
I was struck by this story overnight. A suicide bomber hits a soccer stadium near Baghdad with a death toll similar to that in Brussels recently (29 in Baghdad to 31 in the Belgium capital).
According to The Guardian report:
"A suicide bomber has blown himself up in a football stadium south of the Iraqi capital, killing 29 people and wounding 60, security officials said, as the military announced new gains on the ground against Islamic State.
"The bombing took place during a match in the small stadium in the city of Iskanderiyah, 30 miles from Baghdad, the officials said. Medical officials confirmed the death toll.
"There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Isis has been waging a campaign of suicide bombings in and around the capital as Iraqi forces and their allies battle the militants in the north and west of the country."
The difference, however, is striking. You're not hearing about this strike 24 hours a day. Extra police aren't pouring into American facilities. Hysteria is not the mode of the media. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are not talking about banning Muslims here or patrolling American Muslim neighborhoods. The world is clearly not particularly endangered by this set of deaths. They portend nothing. Counterterrorism experts haven't flooded TV to talk about the meaning of this strike for us all, etc. etc. etc. This is, of course, the way of our world. Make of it what you will!
Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World (Haymarket Books).