Daily Mirror (newspaper in London)
No matter what your views on President Bush's statement of upcoming war,
this, from an English journalist, is very interesting. For those of you not 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 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 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.
No matter what your views on President Bush's statement of upcoming war,
this, from an English journalist, is very interesting. For those of you not 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 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 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.
