Terrorism v state terror

Rohan Pearce

In the imperialist countries such as Australia, people are conditioned to react differently to the violence of the oppressed and the oppressor. So, for example, the March 11 terrorist attacks in Madrid claimed some 200 lives and the mainstream media screamed outrage.

The death toll of Iraqis from the US-led invasion and occupation has topped 50,000, around 10,000 of them civilians. Yet the reporting of this mass slaughter in the mainstream media was negligible and its outrage has never matched the level that followed 9/11 or the Madrid bombings.

The scale of deaths resulting from terrorist atrocities like 9/11 pales in comparison with the deaths caused by acts of state terror committed by the US and its allies, such as Australia, since the beginning of their "war on terror".

From Green Left Weekly, April 7, 2004.

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From GLW issue 578