The Slaughter of the Innocent

As we feel for the victims of yet another atrocity, more innocent youngsters killed, never having the chance to live a long life, as we do, here are a few quuotations, not just about Manchester, but about the slaughter of the innocent wherever it occurs.

You gave to this world wonderful children. They didn’t live long lives, but they lived meaningful lives. Their lives were distressingly small in quantity, but glowingly large in quality.

Martin Luther King

No matter what cause one defends, it will suffer permanent disgrace if one resorts to blind attacks on crowds of innocent people. 

Albert Camus

Must hearts forever suffer
from ignorance and greed?
Can bombs heal our souls
or set our spirits free?

― Aberjhani

How dare they? How dare they do this to little girls? She understood now why her parents go so angry when they saw the result of bombers in the white hot streets of the Middle East, why men and women wailed in anger as well as grief as they lifted the limp bodies of children from the rubble. How dare they?

― Stephen M. Irwin

In Aleppo where children’s cries
drown out the explosions of mortar bombs
until they lose their voice,
their families, and their limbs.
Yes, hell certainly does exist
right now, at this moment,
as I pen this poem. And all we’re doing
to extinguish this hellfire
is sighing, shrugging, liking, and sharing.
Tell me: what exactly does that make
us? Are we any better than the
gatekeepers of hell?

― Kamand Kojouri

The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong - and no argument or excuse, no matter how deeply believed, can ever make it right. No religion on earth condones the killing of innocent people; no faith tradition tolerates the random killing of our brothers and sisters on this earth. 

Feisal Abdul Rauf

There's one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn't one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people. 

Salman Rushdie

Let all the green leaves be mine

as long as the trees define
shades created by their limbs
for the soil made with victims
of atrocity's vileness
to redeem the fragileness

― Munia Khan