Subject: Fw: You've got to read this editorial!! Just a word of
background for those of you who are not familiar with the Daily Mirror
newspaper which is published in England. It is a notorious left-wing
daily and is usually very anti-American. It's kinda hard to believe that
they published this editorial. The author is Tony Parsons. It follows:
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 recognised 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 realise 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 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. Save me the orange centre, 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.
