LESS THAN ZERO

Speaking of children and the treasures they are, I just now was watching some news coverage of film taken by the Beslan terrorists during their herding of children into the school gym with the blood-streaked floor, and close-ups of dynamite bundles wired near little white-stockinged feet, 8-year-old kids in their school clothes forced to sit there for two days, hands behind their heads (so they couldn't get at the grenades and rifles they brought to school?), little ones kept thus at gunpoint behind lines formed of mines and dynamite and grenades wired together throughout the crowd of tiny bodies--- the picture of it--- all done for an as-yet unknown cause that had best remain unknown, for those non-humans have done their cause irreparable damage, they have lost any iota of the respect even murderers may retain in the eyes of the world's law: they have forsaken all honor and nobility of purpose in exchange for the trappings of utter cowardice and shame.

The closest thing I have seen to this insult to the human race is the nazis (they don't deserve a capital letter) rounding up fear-eyed little children with their hands in the air for transport to the ovens. This is not the incidental murder of children by opposing forces as is now happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, among so many agonizing instances in history: this is specifically and purposefully and idealistically targeting children, threatening to blow sheer innocents to pieces, in fact shooting hundreds of children in the back as they tried to flee; what courage this shows! What nobility! What honor! Any ideology that enabled this is worth less than zero.

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