[Loch-Ruadh] OT---article from Daily Mirror in England

[giles nemeton]

the following article has nothing what so ever to do
with the SCA or the middleages, but I thought some of
you might have a bit of interest in what it says....

Cian


SHAME ON YOU AMERICAN-HATING LIBERALS

Tony Parsons


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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MORITURI NOLUMUS MORI......