Why isn't this in the mainstream news?
For each civilian killed by "terrorists" on and since 9-11, the USA and its allies have brought about almost four non-combatant, civilian deaths in return.
The figures above do not include recent civilian deaths in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Recent estimates (updated November 2004) suggest that the Israeli army has killed over 1600 Palestinian civilians since 2001. Around 900 Israeli civilians have died in suicide attacks over the same period. This represents a ratio approaching 2:1 in Palestinian civilian deaths as compared to Israeli deaths. The Israeli leadership has repeatedly claimed that their actions against the Palestinians are part and parcel of the same "war on terror" being fought by the USA and the UK.
One might ask how it is possible to claim that the deaths of some 4,500 civilians at the hands of paramilitaries demonstrates "utter contempt for innocent life" when the blood of some 14,000 innocents staining our own hands is considered noble and necessary. Tony Blair provided the following answer on 20th November, standing alongside George W Bush in London:
"This terrorism is the 21st century threat. It is a war that strikes at the heart of all that we hold dear, and there is only one response that is possible or rational: to meet their will to inflict terror with a greater will to defeat it; to confront their philosophy of hate with our own of tolerance and freedom; and to challenge their desire to frighten us, divide us, unnerve us with an unshakeable unity of purpose; to stand side by side with the United States of America and with our other allies in the world, to rid our world of this evil once and for all."
The claim that a strategy which produces 14,000 civilian deaths is the expression of a "philosophy of tolerance and freedom" is a claim which we find incomprehensible. Our incomprehension is shared, we believe, by the majority of the world's people.

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