that's true, but imagine that retort when speaking of the burning of the Library of Alexandria -- it is presumably true that people there suffered during their civil war, but the symbolic loss of human knowledge and progress that the burning of the library represents is what is remembered of the event.

Speaking about one thing being horrible doesn't somehow disqualify other things from being horrible, nor does it take away from the personal suffering of others by the mere mention of it.

I don't agree. It's a different kind of loss entirely and it's also important. Culture is a major aspect of what it means for a society to endure over time. Erasing that culture and that history is monstrous.