This was passed on to me.  I have NOT researched its authenticity, but I
like the message, and it fits right in with our current OT discussion.

John Lee

>> 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.
>>
>> Tony Parsons Daily Mirror 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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!
>

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