Misdirected Hatred

Today I was going to blog about yesterday's unfortunate Lush glitter incident. While driving this morning and listening to the news, I became more and more unsettled, and decided to preempt my ramblings about the dangers of bath bombs in favor of the current media death sensation.

When Saddam Hussein's sons were killed during some bombing in Iraq, I found myself vaguely unsettled, but couldn't place why. Of course, the images plastered on every newspaper and every news station were horrifying, but there was something else. During this recent period of self-exploration, I've realized that the unsettling feeling I had was disgust. Disgust that everyone around me was so thrilled at the deaths of our "enemies." Granted, I've heard these two were not the nicest guys ever to walk the earth. Does that make it right for us to kill them? No. And the pride that saturated the citizenry in the days afterwards was equally wrong - it shows the lack of perspective that we have all developed.

So today as I listened to the radio, I was nauseated by the declaration that today is "Zarqawi Death Day." Again, here was someone who probably would win no Mr. Congeniality competitions. So we pinned all of our anger onto this man and crushed him. Now we see his photo everywhere, and slaver over the story that he was not quite dead when the troops rushed in, that the last thing he saw was an American soldier before he finally expired - as though we got the last word. Is his death a reason to party? Is it morally right to cheer over the death of someone's father/brother/husband? No. It's unfortunate that the majority of people will see things this way, blinded as they are by the hate they have to feel in order to feel something. Our country has to direct the people's hate somewhere ... and after the deaths of these three men and three women (yes, five other people died in addition to the "target"), it will be directed at someone else and whomever happens to be dining with them at the time.