Making Headlines

Yes, yes of course we know that conflict
kills, for there have always been wars
and there is no secret that the victims
are invariably innocents, not necessarily
combatants, and certainly one 'side' is
noble, the other the quintessential dark
enemy of humankind for whom the very
essence of human rights is an unknown
and uninteresting concept. The military
machine targets the enemy bombing
known positions with such technical
accuracy that the deed done, it is then
revealed the number of civilians whose
lives were forfeit in the greater interests
of annihilating a threat the enemy poses.
That indeed is war, the collateral damage
that is inevitable, that represents the
damning face of war whose pursuit is
never-ending. Yet that collective shrug
of regret for such untenable losses also
betrays the collective sigh of acceptance
for, as we know, there are some wars
that must be fought in the struggle between
good and evil, and we are intrinsically
good in our determination to outlast evil. 
But oh, the furor, the indignation the moral 
offensiveness of an imperious dictator 
blatantly ordering the assassination of a 
dissenter; quite simply not countenanced
a deed so outrageously atrocious that the
global community of sanctimonious critics
as one declares the hitherto tolerated
source of the crime persona non grata
a punishment never before visited upon
such a powerful, wealthy, influential
source, signifying the outrage of a
public whose disinterest in the plight
of many triggers fury in the death of one.