afrotc-l: This is worth the read........well worth.

British Editorial/thanks Great Britian!

No matter what your views on President Bush's
statement of upcoming war, this, from an English
journalist, is very interesting. For those of you
not 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 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 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.