Delivered-To: info@christianpoint.org
From: Fuller Alberta Civ WRALC/FMR <Alberta.Fuller@robins.af.mil>
To: info@christianpoint.org
Subject: FW: (no subject)
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 08:16:04 -0500

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 the meticulously planned slaughter of their
own people?

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!