SHAME ON YOU AMERICAN-HATING LIBERALS
Tony Parsons
September 11, 2002
From The Daily Mirror – A British Publication
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.
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