The appalling truck bomb attack by al-Shabaab on the capital of Somalia has claimed the lives of over 270 people and injured hundreds more, making it the deadliest terror attack in Somalia, a country that had been ravaged by a quarter century of war. Among the victims were old and young, people with bright futures, people who were greatly loved. They were beloved children, admired community members, doting spouses, greatest friends. And after some carefully deliberated, planned, calculated moments of terror, they were gone, amidst the disarray and rubble.
It is part of the landscape of terror that we are stunned by the senselessness of so many deaths and so much pain, the injuries visited on completely innocent people and families and the brutal disruption of lives. It is, in a darker way, part of that landscape that people exist who do deliberate, plan, and calculate terrorist acts to maximize exactly this kind of extraordinary damage--who see it as a message, and a political tool.
I can't see anything in this act but a hatred of humanity, and no aim that could be in the hearts of people capable of such monstrosity, but emptiness and continued brutality. My thoughts are with the people of Somalia, and the loved ones and mourners and sufferers with the victims of this tragedy, however far-flung. Those who have such a viciousness towards life to have contributed to this can not prosper in in any way. Those who maintain faith in humanity reap their own reward.
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