[bowtiebandit]

>(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 [England]; too
loud, too rich, too full of themselves, and so much happier than
Europeans-but it has become an epidemic. And that 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 these victims? 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 America 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.
Please pass this on. A lot of people need to read it. Light travels faster
than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.