[Culturechat] Can anyone remember?

[Vance Roy]

Here in CH, as in much of Europe, the USA is catching a lot of flak  
about being on the war path. A lot of this is aimed at George W. Bush.  
The selection below was written by a Brit. It was sent to me by one who  
is not a wild-eyed war lover, but someone who doesn't care to see  
another 9/11 or a mushroom cloud.
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> Subject: In honor of American Restraint
>
> 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  
> perpetratorstruly
> 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 n 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. Now we are told he likes  
> Quality
> Street.  Save me the orange 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.
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Vance Roy
gigli.saw@dplanet.ch
http://homepage.mac.com/fredch