September
13, 2008 Update:
As we just passed the seventh anniversary it is sad to see how many
of us have become indifferent, influenced by the liberal media who always
seem to be more concerned about the rights of the perpetrators than
those of the victims. Are you confused? Did you
forget??
***************
This
is well worth reading. Draw your own conclusions!
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2003 07:18:36 -0700
Article from London's Daily Mirror
Surprise! Surprise! When one of the world's most liberal left wing newspapers
writes a great article like this, there is hope for everyone. A thoughtfully
written piece in one of the most left wing newspapers in the UK.
Just a word of background for those of you who aren't familiar with the
UK's Daily Mirror. This is one of the most notorious Left wing, anti-American
dailies in the UK. Hard to believe that the Daily Mirror actually published
it, but it did.
Begin article:
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 [deserved reprimand or punishment]. 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 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. 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, never forget!
(Please pass this article on.)