No Sweet in Violence

Re: “Violent Attacks in Iraq Leave at Least 23 Dead, Including 9 Children” (February 23, 2010)

To the Editor:

In Marc Santora’s article about the random killings around Iraq, little information is given about with whom the gunmen were connected. These seem to be random because “Authorities detected no discernible pattern to the violence…” Emotion is a key in this article. The title describes the number of children included in the death toll. Santora also describes that many of the victims were beheaded. Finally, there is disconnected emotion from the gunmen as we cannot see their eyes in the picture above the article. Therefore, we cannot see their complete outward identity. An interesting part of the article is some of the words that the author uses. He uses the word reminiscent which is often used as a word to think of sweet memories of long ago, such as to reminisce about an old romance. However, there is nothing sweet about what the author is describing. The conflicts during the “…bloodletting between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq…” is not a distant memory. The author himself describes that it happened only a few years ago. The true emotions invoked by Santora are the fact that there is no end in sight for the Iraqis…yet.