While our thoughts are rightly with the victims of the Boston bombings in what Taoiseach Enda Kenny called “this senseless and terrible event”, we might reflect on the contrasting standards applied to equally appalling or worse acts from elsewhere in the world.

Last week 11 children and one woman were killed by a Nato air strike in Afghanistan. This Afghan bombing is only one of many that are killing civilians every week. Do we know the names of these Afghan children and the woman? Did our Taoiseach issue a statement labelling this as a “senseless and terrible event”?

Judging by the response of our political leaders and the media coverage to these two events it is hard not to conclude that western lives are valued much more highly than those of people in Afghanistan or the Middle East — which is one of the reasons why western leaders promote perpetual war with apparent ease.

Jim Roche
PRO Irish Anti War Movement
PO Box 9260
Dublin 1