Tony Parsons and the Daily mirror

[Navaron]

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 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 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.


****I think it is great we have allies like the Brits, and even though we have our differences, we are mighty together - Nav****