Ross: Deadly attack in Manchester is supposed to create hatred
May 23, 2017, 5:58 AM | Updated: 9:48 am
Last night, a distraught mother in Manchester called CNN. Her daughter Olivia had gone to the Ariana Grande concert with a friend. She hadn’t heard from either of them, and she expressed the universal sentiment: “I have no idea what could go through their minds to want to injure innocent children. They’re children, they haven’t done anything wrong.”
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Why go after innocent victims? Unfortunately, we all know why. They do it because the victims are innocent. They do it to enrage as many viewers as they can.
It works. If any one of us somehow could get a hold of the person who did it, we know what we’d do. I don’t think it would involve jury selection.
That’s the whole purpose of an act like this.
It’s to taunt us. It’s someone with a smirk on his face telling us that despite all the surveillance cameras, the watch lists, the security checks, the see-something-say-something posters, and the outraged speeches of angry politicians, there will always be an unprotected group of innocent people somewhere.
The only question is how do we react? Do we still go to concerts? Do we let our kids go?
Of course, the odds say that far more people will die driving to a concert than at a concert. But that mom in Manchester doesn’t care what the statistics say.
“She’ll never be going out of my sight again.”
That’s how terrorists work.
They want you to feel vulnerable everywhere. So, they deliberately light the fuse on that instinct for revenge that creates hatred between groups, and tempts leaders to do stupid things.
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