The ethical code of a civilization is an amalgamation of the individual ethical codes of its members, especially its past members. For most people, ethics are rooted entirely in emotions, there is no logic to them.
Most people feel much worse about the death of a child than the death of an adult. There's no rhyme or reason to it. It is a pre-programmed instinct. Almost all humans, to a greater or lesser extent, have an instinct to protect children. We have to, because our children are helpless for a much longer proportion of their lives than any other animal.
So when somebody assassinates a building full of children, most people feel worse than if it were a building full of adults -- even a much larger building. It's being hypothesized that the bombing in Ossetia will have a more profound effect on the West's attitude toward Islam than 9/11. Because more children were killed in Ossetia than in 9/11.
Your position is sound and well-reasoned. Unfortunately for you, you're not in charge. When the news of the school bombing became known, most people were guided by their instincts rather than their reason.
Islam just shot itself in the foot. Notice how Westerners have already started dispensing with the subtle distinction of saying "Islamic fundamentalists" or "Islamic militants." It's just "Muslims" now, or some far more derogatory epithet.
This is not going to go down well. For decades the smaller countries made do by taking sides in the USA-Russia conflict and playing us against each other. Suddenly the USA and Russia are on the same side. The Russian embassy in Washington was so overwhelmed with Americans coming in to express their sympathy -- Americans crying in sympathy for the people who less than 20 years ago we believed to be irredeemably evil -- that the staff were speechless. The block around the building is covered with flowers knee deep. American children whose parents kept the Cold War going are walking in and making off-the-cuff speeches about how much sorrow they feel in their hearts for their brothers and sisters in Russia.
If the rest of the world thought that America as the only remaining superpower was hard to take, just let them wait until they see the new US-Russian alliance in action.
Move over, China. The big boys are back and they are really pissed off.
It's a shame that the roots of the Chechnya situation have almost nothing to do with what's going on in the Islamic world at large. The ethnic conflict between the Ingush people and the Ossetians has been going on for a couple of centuries, and was exacerbated by the Soviet treatment of the Ingushetians during WWII. Somehow they thought that they were Nazi sympathizers and exiled every single one of them to Siberia, leaving their houses for the Ossetians to move in.
The Chechnyans got involved in this because they have their own axe to grind with Russia. The Ingush extremists talked them into doing their dirty deed in Ossetia because it's so much closer and so much more poorly defended than Moscow, and besides most Ossetians are Christians and the Ingush and Chechnya people are both largely Muslim, so let's inject a little religious hatred into the brewing ethnic hatred.
So far, the politics of the 21st century are being shaped by ethnic and religious rivalries from the Dark Ages.
Go figure.
