I know this is long, but please read! You will be glad you did!
An Article from England.
This was written before the war,
so it might be dated,
but what an article!




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 notoriously 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 roadcasting - 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 terrorists 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". (A British box of chocolates) 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.
Do consider passing this on

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