Worldwide - News
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 left-wing daily that is normally not supportive of the Colonials across
the Atlantic.
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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
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 range center, 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.
Last night, as I slept, in a dream an American ghost spoke to me. The Ghost
was a soldier at Valley Forge. He held, in bloody hands, a musket. Barefoot
in the snow, he stands, starved from lack of food,wounded from months of
battle, scarred from the eternity away from his family, surrounded by death
and the carnage of war.
He stands there tough, fire in his eyes and victory on his breath. There is
anger with in him, then he speaks.
"I gave you a birthright of freedom, born in the Constitution. I fought in
the snow to give you the freedom to vote. I left my family destitute, to win you
the freedom of speech. I gave my blood, others their very lives, to give you a
country that is free, so that you may defend her and pass freedom on to your
children, as I did to mine.
Now, your children graduate to illerate too read. If it rains, you stay home
and do not vote.
When you should raise your voice on critical issues, you remain silent, not
calling those who lie to task. You march and hold signs, when by your country
you should stand! Worst of all, you have no respect for the soldier, those who
gave you this great land.
It was the soldier, not the reporter, who gave you freedom of the press. It's
the soldier, not the poet, who gave you freedom to express your views. It's
the soldier, not the campus organizer, who allows you to demonstrate. The
soldier who salutes the flag, serves the flag, whose very coffin is draped with
the flag, that gave you the right to burn the flag.
We gave you much, but it did not come free. A free land in which all men are
equal, yet liberty has had a cost. America, you must now defend this land, as
others have in the past, or the torch of liberty and freedom,for all mankind, shall
fail and go out. It rest now upon your heads and is in your hands, more so in
your hearts.
It's time for you to take a stand like those who came before you have, time
to do your part. Least you should forget, the Ghost of Soldiers walk this
land yet.
(Author unknown)
Published by a fellow officer from Chicago
