“Did you hear the applause?” he asked me, staring at the screen where sleek drones danced across the night sky to the sound of Handel.
“Where?” I asked, though I already knew.
“Riyadh. At the forum. They unveiled a new cruise missile. Hits a coffee cup from a thousand kilometers. Standing ovation.”
He went quiet. Then, barely audible:
“I thought about a boy in Jalalabad. He’s eight. Lost a leg. No camera caught his tears in 4K.”
Welcome to the age of aestheticized horror—where terror doesn’t shock, it dazzles. Where military parades look like fashion shows, and defense briefings resemble Apple keynotes, complete with laser choreography.
The world we once knew isn’t being destroyed by missiles—it’s being dismantled by applause.
Every time another international air show opens in Le Bourget, Dubai, Riyadh—there’s no horror, just awe. Not for courage, resilience, or compassion—but for the clinical precision of killing machines.
Screens flash slick infographics: range, payload, kill ratio. It’s beautiful. It’s clean. It’s sterile. As if we’re not talking about lives, but about geometry.
Twenty-first-century weapons no longer hide. They don’t need camouflage. They’re flaunted like Swiss watches, luxury cars, or pieces of industrial art—not as tools of mass death, but as genius-born marvels of human innovation.
And that’s the true crime of this era. Not just the killing—but the way we’re taught to admire the tools of that killing.
This isn’t just militarism anymore. It’s a cult. A new religion of precision-engineered slaughter.
Where death isn’t tragedy—it’s merchandise. Where suffering isn’t a scream—it’s a brand moment. And war? Just background noise for the product demo in Pavilion G4.
This is where our story begins. A story of a world that forgot how to care—and learned how to idolize the devil, as long as he’s clad in titanium and sports a corporate logo.
The Price of Civilization: When Humanism Takes a Backseat to Metrics
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” Whether Stalin ever said it is beside the point. The quote is the perfect mirror for our age—an era where the language of war is no longer the language of pain. It’s the language of PR, engineering, and optimized algorithms.
We live in a time when the death of a child is logged as “collateral damage,” and a charred city block is billed as a “precision strike.”
Playing with words today isn’t just rhetorical. It’s a method of laundering horror. Terror becomes “strategic deterrence.” Murder is called “target neutralization.” Genocide gets brushed off as an “operational miscalculation.” Somewhere in that linguistic sleight of hand, the human vanishes. What’s left is just coordinates on a strike map.
According to Save the Children, over 4,680 children were killed in armed conflicts in 2023. In 2024, the confirmed number surpassed 5,300. The report states bluntly: “Children are not just victims when homes, hospitals, and schools are destroyed. They are the targets.”
Enter the cynical pageantry of modern war. Death is no longer reported—it’s showcased. A CNN segment might open not with the cries of a mother whose three kids were buried in Gaza, but with a flattering breakdown of Iron Dome’s “98.4% interception efficiency.” Meanwhile, on another network, a defense analyst marvels at the “operational success of HIMARS systems,” as if we’re talking about a next-gen graphics card—not steel fragments tearing through bodies.
The UN’s 2024 report on children and armed conflict paints a grim picture: over 1,200 minors killed in Yemen, around 800 in Syria, over 600 in Sudan. Death by airstrike, by mortar, by drone. But the headlines render all of it into neat euphemisms: “medium-intensity military operations.”
We’re not saving lives anymore—we’re “meeting objectives.”
As French military analyst Jean-Dominique Merchet puts it, “The goal of any modern operation is to minimize political fallout while maximizing firepower. Humanism is not part of the equation.”
Article 8(2) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is clear: intentional attacks on civilians or non-military targets are war crimes. But who’s enforcing that today? Operations in Gaza, in Karabakh, in Donetsk, in Syria, in Darfur and Sana’a—they all share the same denominator: impunity.
Modern warfare thrives in the shadows—under the cover of buzzwords and PowerPoints. The media eagerly broadcasts “beautiful radar imagery,” maps of offensive maneuvers, “reports from the front” complete with high-def explosions and drone footage, like war is some blockbuster action trailer.
Audiences are conditioned not to empathize, but to evaluate. Not to mourn, but to compare calibers.
As Canadian author Naomi Klein wrote in The Shock Doctrine: “War has become capitalism’s showcase, where death is just another cost of doing business.”
As long as “humanitarian catastrophe” replaces “genocide,” and “platform activation” means “hospital bombing,” we live in a world where reality has been swapped for spin.
A World Where “Platform” Means Tank and “Threat Neutralization” Means a Family Dead
We live in a world where “asymmetric response” is often code for razing a village. A world where the words have been scrubbed clean, laundered of their violence. And as George Orwell once wrote, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
So here it is: Count the dead. Show their faces. Return names to those who’ve been reduced to “collateral damage.”
Because if we can’t even do that—humanity has already lost.
When Weapons Matter More Than Lives
The Israeli pavilion at the Paris Air Show was covered in black fabric for a day before the official opening. That moment became the subject of fevered speculation—not because the tech inside could flatten neighborhoods in Gaza, but because, for once, someone showed a hint of restraint. The curtain was more newsworthy than the payload. Defense bloggers and think tankers didn’t dwell on the implications of the weapons on display. They dissected the optics of the blackout. Meanwhile, according to the UN, over 2.1 million people have been displaced by the conflict in Sudan. And yet, not a word in the evening news.
History knows many wars. But it knows very few honorable victories. Rarely has might been wielded without sinking into cruelty. That’s why the Second Karabakh War should be studied not just in military academies, but in schools of diplomacy, international law, and political ethics. It wasn’t just a war of liberation—it was a new chapter in what it means to be civilized in the heat of conflict.
In October 2020, Armenian “Smerch” rockets loaded with cluster munitions rained down on the Azerbaijani city of Barda. Twenty-one people were killed that day, more than 70 wounded. Just days before—on October 11 and 17—missile strikes hit Ganja. Among the debris: baby strollers, toys, and the bodies of children. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, these attacks involved internationally banned cluster bombs—used in direct violation of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.
So what did Azerbaijan do in response? Retaliate with strikes on Yerevan? Launch Polonez or LORA missiles at Armenian homes, schools, or markets?
No.
“We do not take revenge on civilians. We take our fight to the battlefield. We are not Armenians.”
— Ilham Aliyev, 2020
That stance wasn’t pacifism. It wasn’t weakness. And it certainly wasn’t empty diplomacy. It was a direct challenge to a Western-bred logic: if you suffer, you are entitled to become a monster. Azerbaijan showed the world you can suffer and still remain human. You can fight without sinking into barbarism. That’s not a PR line—it’s a national instinct.
According to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols (Protocol I, Article 51; Protocol II, Article 13), intentional strikes on civilian targets without military value are war crimes. In Human Rights Watch’s December 2020 reports, they documented:
- Armenia’s use of cluster munitions in Barda and Tartar;
- Deliberate strikes on mosques, schools, and hospitals;
- Systematic violations of humanitarian law by Armenian armed units operating both in Karabakh and from within Armenia.
Notably, the same report found zero evidence of Azerbaijan intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure. Not one case. During full-scale war, that’s not just unusual—it’s unprecedented.
That the Armenian side resorted to terror tactics isn’t in doubt. It’s been confirmed by satellite imagery, intercepted communications, and prisoner testimonies. The goal was clear: demoralize Azerbaijani civilians, provoke mirrored atrocities, and then play the “both sides” card to bait foreign intervention.
That trap didn’t work.
Because Azerbaijan’s war doctrine was rooted not only in strategic clarity—but in an ethical compass rarely seen in the post-Soviet theater.
Many asked: “Why show restraint when you have the power to strike?”
The answer was simple: because we are different.
Azerbaijan has never waged war for land for land’s sake. The 2020 war was about justice, memory, dignity. About ancestral graves desecrated. Mosques turned into pigsties. Books burned, cemeteries razed. Children born under occupation, raised without knowing what homeland even means. And that changes everything.
“Justice is not an emotion. It’s a principle. We are not fighting the Armenian people. We are fighting those who turned our land into a prison. We are taking it back—with honor.”
— Ilham Aliyev, Al Jazeera, November 2020
And here’s what that looked like in numbers:
- Throughout the entire war, not a single airstrike by Azerbaijan’s air force targeted civilian areas outside the conflict zone.
- According to Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Health, 93 civilians were killed, and over 400 wounded, by Armenian shelling.
- Every Armenian POW was returned after the war ended, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions—unlike the dozens of Azerbaijani prisoners and hostages who vanished after the First Karabakh War.
The world needs to understand: Azerbaijan didn’t just win on the battlefield. It redefined wartime ethics. Without pretending to be pacifist, without dressing up its actions in lofty humanitarian language, Azerbaijan proved that you can be ruthless on the front—and noble in your targets.
That’s not “asymmetric warfare.” That’s moral refusal. And in that refusal lies strategic superiority. Because moral authority is a weapon no airstrike can destroy, no media can silence, no backroom deal can buy off.
This isn’t about oil. It’s not about land. This is about dignity, blood, memory, and the unshakable right of a nation to exist—not as a victim, but as a sovereign force with honor.
The Age of Murdered Pain: How Hype Squeezed Humanity Out of the News
In 2025, truth no longer exists as a moral category. It’s measured in screen time. If you’re on air, you exist. If you’re off-camera, you’re already dead. That’s no longer a metaphor—it’s the iron rule of the digital media age, where war, suffering, and death need media managers just to be seen. Journalism has stopped being the craft of empathy. It’s now the business of attention.
From Washington to Doha, the global conversation revolves around how much more accurate the Spike missile is compared to the Javelin, which defense AI system can “predict” troop movement, or how many billions South Korea is pouring into fleet modernization. But where’s the op-ed about the insulin shortage in Gaza? The infographic tracking how many newborns in Fallujah died due to lack of oxygen? The numbers on psychotic breaks among nine-year-old refugees from Darfur?
According to the Digital Global Overview 2025, over 6.3 billion people are now online, with 4.9 billion getting their news daily through short-form video. TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels dictate the narrative—and chop reality down to the length of a clip. If your tragedy can’t fit into 30 seconds, it doesn’t stand a chance.
A report from Oxford’s Center for Media Policy puts it plainly: “The greatest threat to humanitarian coverage isn’t censorship—it’s entertainment-driven recommendation algorithms.”
And that’s why yet another AI-guided drone racks up millions of views, while the UN’s report on hunger in Mali is read by twelve people—author and translator included.
In March 2025, South Korea’s Ministry of Defense announced it had boosted defense spending to 2.7% of GDP—the highest in 18 years. Bloomberg followed up with glowing coverage about Seoul’s “new strategic maturity” and its “expanding defense tech export potential.”
That same month, suicide rates among Iraq War veterans housed near Seoul spiked 22%, according to the Seoul Human Services Department. No psychiatrists were available. Instead, the camps rely on AI surveillance systems that flag “self-harm risk” based on gait and facial expressions. When one veteran set himself on fire, the system logged it as a “resilience test.”
Fallujah is a ghost town. It was obliterated twice—once in 2004, again in 2016. No international commission has ever completed an investigation into the use of white phosphorus, despite countless NGO claims. According to a 2024 report from the University of Baghdad, birth defects in the area exceed Hiroshima-era levels by 30%.
“Fallujah has become a symbol of humanity abandoning its own children,” reads the April 2025 resolution of the Independent Society of Medical Advocates (ISMA).
“It wasn’t a military assault. It was a ritual banishment of pain from the field of vision.”
From January to May 2025, over 23,000 people were killed in West Darfur, per Human Rights Watch. During a so-called “internal stabilization operation” launched by the Sudanese government with silent approval from the African Union, 118 villages were burned to the ground. More than 300,000 people were displaced.
And yet, global media barely covered it—because that same quarter, Nvidia unveiled a new line of neurochips. Bloomberg ran 37 articles about the product launch. On Sudan? One news brief.
The Democratic Republic of Congo remains the epicenter of an unfilmed nightmare. In its March 2025 report, Amnesty International revealed that the Ituri region is home to 136 armed groups, 27 of which are directly financed through illegal cobalt mining—the very element powering the batteries in your smartphone, your EV, your laptop.
“Children aged 8 to 13 work in pits as deep as 30 meters, with no safety gear, no gloves, and no names,” the report states.
“Their existence is essential to the market—but irrelevant to documentation.”
The May 2025 UN OCHA bulletin notes:
- 78% of medical facilities in active conflict zones were destroyed
- 3 neonatal incubators shut down due to power outages
- Over 100 children died from oxygen shortages in makeshift shelters
Not one of these statistics made it onto the covers of The Economist or Politico. Why? Because they don’t fit the aesthetic of viral visualization.
We’re entering an era where suffering must be validated by hype. It has to be “compelling,” “aesthetic,” “engaging.” If grief can’t be stylized, it doesn’t compute.
The world is no longer divided between the oppressed and the oppressors. It’s divided between those who exist in the algorithm—and those it simply doesn’t see.
The Price of Being Unseen Is a Human Life
There is no more “international community.” No “conscience of humanity.” All that’s left is the audience. The volume is always on—but the empathy is off.
The Global Moral Inversion
That’s why the real tragedy of our time isn’t just in the missiles. It’s in what follows—or doesn’t—after the blast. A child dies, and the world doesn’t stop. It scrolls. A number in a briefing. A 12-second clip on TikTok. Swipe. Next story. Civilization doesn’t collapse in fire—it erodes in inertia.
When was the last time someone seriously asked: What does it feel like to be a child and watch your mother die in front of you? Not in a documentary. Not in a human rights report. In reality. The world has become so technologically advanced, it has dehumanized pain. Suffering has become metadata. International humanitarian law still exists—but who’s listening?
Maybe this isn’t just a byproduct of speed and scale. Maybe it’s by design. Maybe the death of humanism isn’t collateral—it’s intentional. If you still believe the world is moving toward harmony, turn on the BBC, Al Jazeera, or Fox News. Watch them debate which countries have earned the right to import weapons, and which have not yet “demonstrated maturity in handling technologies of lethality.”
The death of a child is no longer news. It’s background noise. Or, as one Western analyst put it, “an inevitable cost of deterrence.”
So what do we do?
We remember.
We remember—against the noise, against the feeds, against the algorithm. We remember not as nostalgia, but as resistance. Because memory is not sentimentality. It’s armor. The last shield of the human in a post-human world.
Remember how Azerbaijan—a nation that has endured blood, exile, and loss—refused to become a reflection of its oppressor. It didn’t answer occupation with the killing of schoolteachers. It didn’t torch churches in revenge for burned mosques. It didn’t turn schools into bunkers. It gave them back to the children.
It didn’t become a terrorist force. It remained an army. A state. A straight spine in the storm, not a crawling hatred hiding behind foreign flags.
That is not pacifism. That is humanity—raw, defiant, unsentimental. Not peace slogans or soft diplomacy. A hard, unflinching “we are not like you.” A verdict on those who believe in the power of impunity. And that kind of moral strength—that kind of clarity—is more terrifying than any rocket. Because it can’t be jammed, hacked, or silenced.
Justice with dignity—that’s what global killers fear most. Because it doesn’t come from a broadcast. It comes from soil, from memory, from the bones and voices of the dead—who are done being silent.
So the question remains:
Can the real world—not the curated one, but the one made of people—still rein in the war machines of the planet? Or are we, like livestock in a digital pen, doomed to scroll endlessly through feeds where tanks matter more than children, metrics more than souls, graphs more than blood?
The answer isn’t in the hands of power. It’s in ours.
It comes down to this: will we let our eyes truly see—and will we let our hearts remember?