Sacrificing lives for what?

The Feast of Sacrifice bayram (holiday) or Eid al-Adha is one of the two most important festivities of Islam. Sacrificing sheep, goats, camels or cows, depending on the wealth of the family, during the bayram has become a tradition. It would have been great, perhaps, if Abraham was offered by God to plant a tree instead of a sheep to sacrifice instead of Ismail, yet religious beliefs cannot be questioned and must be respected.

A country not so alien to Turks is sacrificing itself, its beloved sons and daughters in what appears to be a war fuelled by greed and determination to stay in power forever at any cost. Separatist terrorists are slaughtering the beloved sons and daughters of that country with the capabilities they acquired during the time when "guns were silenced" because of the so-called "peace process."

The culture of sacrifice dates way back to pre-Islamic times and according to many scholars might be as old as the presence of humanity on this planet. In ancient times and still today in many societies shedding blood is a must of the rite of sacrifice. Commercializing the Muslim hajj, killing people in the hundreds because of ignorance, fatalism, the habit of trifling with security requirements and seeing the holy hajj simply as an occasion to rip money from devoted Muslims cannot of course be an acceptable sacrifice performance. Nor can sacrificing human lives to advance a political cause (whatever it is) be acceptable.

Terrorism of all sorts must be condemned. In this country, of course, there is not a president and a government who neglected public security, engaged in an officious and ominous "peace" process for years and allowed terrorists to stockpile weapons and ammunition and lay down mines and tons of explosives all along...