From: chuck (chuckm@powernet.net)
Date: Fri Mar 28 2003 - 16:30:33 PST
Was sent this from a friend, I don't think any comment is
nesscarry.................................
No matter what your views on President Bush's statements about an
upcoming war, this piece, from an English journalist, is very
interesting.
Just a word of background for those of you who aren't familiar with the
United Kingdom's "Daily Mirror" newspaper. This notoriously
left-wing journal normally is not supportive of the Colonials across the
Atlantic.
By Tony Parsons for the "Daily Mirror"... September 11, 2002
ONE year ago, the world witnessed a unique kind of broadcasting -- the
mass murder of thousands, live on
television. As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race,
September 11 was up there with Pol Pot's
mountain of skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like
garbage in the Nazi concentration camps.
An unspeakable act so cruel, so calculated and so utterly merciless
that surely the world could agree on one
thing -- nobody deserves this fate.
Surely there could be consensus: the victims were truly innocent, the
perpetrators truly evil.
But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as
America's comeuppance.
Incredibly, anti-Americanism has increased over the last year.
There has always been a simmering resentment to the USA in this
country -- too loud, too rich, too full of
themselves and so much happier than Europeans - but it has become an
epidemic.
And it seems incredible to me. More than that, it turns my stomach.
America is this country's greatest friend and our staunchest ally. We
are bonded to the US by culture, language
and blood.
A little over half a century ago, around half a million Americans died
for our freedoms, as well as their own.
Have we forgotten so soon?
And exactly a year ago, thousands of ordinary men, women and children
-- not just Americans, but from dozens
of countries -- were butchered by a small group of religious fanatics.
Are we so quick to betray them?
What touched the heart about those who died in the twin towers and on
the planes was that we recognized
them. Young fathers and mothers, somebody's son and somebody's
daughter, husbands and wives. And
children. Some unborn.
And these people brought it on themselves? And their nation is to
blame for their meticulously planned
slaughter?
These days you don't have to be some dust-encrusted nut job in Kabul
or Karachi or Finsbury Park to see
America as the Great Satan.
The anti-American alliance is made up of self-loathing liberals who
blame the Americans for every ill in the Third
World, and conservatives suffering from power-envy, bitter that the
world's only superpower can do what it
likes without having to ask permission.
The truth is that America has behaved with enormous restraint since
September 11.
Remember, remember.
Remember the gut-wrenching tapes of weeping men phoning their wives to
say, "I love you," before they were
burned alive. Remember those people leaping to their deaths from the
top of burning skyscrapers.
Remember the hundreds of firemen buried alive. Remember the smiling
face of that beautiful little girl who was
on one of the planes with her mum. Remember, remember -- and realize
that America has never retaliated for
9/11 in anything like the way it could have.
So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked without a trial in Camp X-ray?
Pass the Kleenex.
So some Afghan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily
fired their semi-automatics in a sky full of
American planes? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to
confetti.
AMERICA could have turned a large chunk of the world into a parking
lot. That it didn't is a sign of strength.
American voices are already being raised against attacking Iraq -
that's what a democracy is for. How many in
the Islamic world will have a minute's silence for the slaughtered
innocents of 9/11? How many Islamic leaders
will have the guts to say that the mass murder of 9/11 was an
abomination?
When the news of 9/11 broke on the West Bank, those freedom-loving
Palestinians were dancing in the street.
America watched all of that -- and didn't push the button. We should
thank the stars that America is the most
powerful nation in the world. I still find it incredible that 9/11 did
not provoke all-out war. Not a "war on
terrorism." A real war.
The fundamentalist dudes are talking about "opening the gates of
hell," if America attacks Iraq. Well, America
could have opened the gates of hell like you wouldn't believe.
The US is the most militarily powerful nation that ever strode the
face of the earth.
The campaign in Afghanistan may have been less than perfect and the
planned war on Iraq may be
misconceived.
But don't blame America for not bringing peace and light to these
wretched countries. How many democracies
are there in the Middle East, or in the Muslim world? You can count
them on the fingers of one hand --
assuming you haven't had any chopped off for minor shoplifting.
I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush's
poodle. But I would rather be a dog in New
York City than a Prince in Riyadh. Above all, America is hated because
it is what every country wants to be --
rich, free, strong, open, optimistic.
Not ground down by the past, or religion, or some caste system.
America is the best friend this country ever had and we should start
remembering that.
Or do you really think the USA is the root of all evil? Tell it to the
loved ones of the men and women who leaped
to their death from the burning towers.
Tell it to the nursing mothers whose husbands died on one of the
hijacked planes, or were ripped apart in a
collapsing skyscraper.
And tell it to the hundreds of young widows whose husbands worked for
the New York Fire Department. To our
shame, George Bush gets a worse press than Saddam Hussein.
Once we were told that Saddam gassed the Kurds, tortured his own
people and set up rape-camps in Kuwait.
Now we are told he likes Quality Street. Save me the orange centre, oh
mighty one!
Remember, remember, September 11. One of the greatest atrocities in
human history was committed against
America.
No, do more than remember. Never forget.
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