Monday 16 September 2002

Unjustifiable deaths

David Kelly writes that we are wrong to pay so much attention to the 3,000 9-11 deaths in New York unless we also note that:
According to the United Nations, on that day 18,000 children under five died from hunger or thirst, undocumented, unnamed, and without the "benefit" of live television coverage.
He goes on to say:
Our political leaders’ struggle for the moral high ground post-9/11, against the background of avoidable disease, starvation and thirst in our world is as revolting an exercise in hypocrisy as I can remember.
Well, the 3,000 deaths were caused by terrorism and the 18,000 deaths were caused by socialism. Both can and should be dealt with but I rather suspect that the ending of socialism is not quite what Mr Kelly has in mind.