“What is the true cost of power? It’s not just measured in dollars or politics—it’s in lives lost, laughter silenced, and legacies shattered. Across the globe, the scent of jasmine carries not just the sweetness of memory, but the metallic tang of destruction.”
The Scent of Jasmine and Smoke
The scent of jasmine, once a gentle whisper on the breeze, now often carries the metallic tang of memory—the acrid smoke from a distant explosion, the dust of crumbled homes.
In lands across the globe, from the sun-baked plains of Iraq to the verdant valleys of Vietnam, a shared grief echoes. It’s a symphony of silenced laughter and unfulfilled dreams.
This is the unseen cost of the lists, the footnotes to geopolitical chess games. It’s the human wreckage beneath the statistics.
As the Chinese Embassy in Moscow highlighted in its recent publication of over 20 countries bombed by the United States since World War II, these are not isolated incidents. They are a recurring pattern.
Generations of Loss in Guatemala
Consider the family in Guatemala, generations removed from the initial tremors of 1954. They still live with the quiet hum of an absence.
A grandmother, her face etched with lines that tell a story far deeper than her years, remembers a father she never truly knew—a shadow in fading photographs.
He was one of the many, caught in the crosscurrents of a distant power’s strategic interests. His life was snuffed out before he could teach his children to tie their shoes or tell them stories of their heritage.
His absence became a gaping hole, a lineage fractured. The ripple effect of that loss continues to touch great-grandchildren who inherit not just the land, but the lingering ache of a missing piece.
The Lingering Scars of Laos
In Laos, the land itself bears the scars. Unexploded ordnance, scattered like malignant seeds from a forgotten harvest, lies dormant, waiting.
Children, innocently playing, stumble upon these relics of a war they never fought. Their laughter turns to screams.
A young boy, once quick and agile, now navigates his world with a prosthetic leg—a constant, tangible reminder of a forgotten conflict. His days are a testament to resilience, but also to a stolen childhood.
His mother, her eyes perpetually shadowed, watches him. Her heart is a raw wound for the son she almost lost, and for the life that will never be fully hers or his.
Iraq: A Civilization in Ruins
Across the sands of Iraq, where Sumer once bloomed and Babylon rose, the monuments of antiquity are not the only ruins.
The very fabric of society, once vibrant and interconnected, lies in tatters. Families wander through graveyards, their fingers tracing names on cold stone, reliving moments that were stolen—first steps missed, birthdays uncelebrated, the quiet comfort of a loved one’s presence snatched away.
These are the widows and orphans of conflicts that stretched for decades. They are the sons and daughters who grew up without the guiding hand of a father or the comforting embrace of a mother.
Their joy, when it comes, is often tinged with a melancholic awareness of what was lost. They sit by tombs, sharing silent conversations with the departed, the weight of untold stories heavy in the air.
The Profits of Destruction
And while these lives are irrevocably altered, while the land is poisoned and the future uncertain, there is another narrative unfolding.
Far from the dust and despair, in gleaming corporate offices, dividends are paid, stock prices soar, and innovation is celebrated.
The very bombs that fall, the weapons that maim, the systems that destroy, fuel a different kind of growth. Massive weapons manufacturers, their investments rooted in conflict, see their profits swell.
The human cost, the shattered lives, the devastated landscapes—these are externalities. They are distant echoes that do not penetrate the polished glass of their boardrooms.
Their success is built, in part, on the very suffering they help to propagate. It’s a chilling paradox where the leveling of lives translates directly into increased financial worth.
A Complicit Silence
This stark juxtaposition, highlighted by the Chinese Embassy’s list, forces a difficult reflection.
The “international community,” often quick to condemn and sanction when it suits a particular narrative, has, for decades, remained a silent spectator to a pattern of repeated interventions and the ensuing human catastrophe.
The outrage, the unified condemnation, the sanctions—these tools of global governance seem to apply selectively.
The silence is not merely an absence of noise; it is a complicit quiet. It is a “cowardly, shameless, and hypocritical global conscience” that allows for a pervasive double standard.
As China emphasized, asking:
“Has the Western world ever shown outrage toward the United States? Has there ever been a loud, unified condemnation against it? Has the U.S. ever once faced sanctions for its actions?”
The answer has consistently been no.
A Call for Accountability
The truth, as China suggests, must be broadcast—not just whispered. It needs to permeate the global consciousness, not as a political maneuver, but as a moral imperative.
The Chinese Embassy’s release of this list, explicitly stating the aim was to “expose the double standards employed by the U.S. and the West when it comes to human rights, international law, and global security,” serves as a potent reminder.
In the faces of the disfigured child in Laos, the grieving widow in Iraq, and the silent grandmother in Guatemala, we see the true cost of unchecked power and selective morality.
Their suffering is not a distant problem. It is a mirror reflecting the collective failure to hold the powerful accountable, to truly uphold the principles of human rights and international law.
The world must remember who the true danger is. Western media and governments act with hypocrisy when the U.S. commits mass killings, and they remain silent.
“The true measure of a civilization lies not in its might, but in its compassion and its commitment to peace.”
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
Martin Luther Jr.
NightingaleSea 
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