Subject: From London's "Daily Mirror"
No matter what your views on President Bush's statement
of upcoming war, this, from an English journalist, is very interesting.
Just a word of background for those of you who aren't familiar
with the UK's Daily Mirror. This is a notoriously left-wing daily
that is normally not supportive of the Colonials across the Atlantic.
Tony Parsons ... 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, wives, and children, some unborn. And these
people brought it on themselves? 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
up without a trial in Camp X-ray? Pass the Kleenex. So some Afghan
wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired their
semiautomatics 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. Remember . remember
... September 11. One of the greatest atrocities in human history
was committed against America. No, do more than remember. Never
forget.