"No, Do More Than Remember! Never Forget"

[gunnyg]

(From GyG'sMailbag: From geoge Clark)

From: "george b. clark" | This is Spam | Add to Address Book
To: Undisclosed-Recipient@,
Subject: How to be beloved
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 14:05:12 -0400

Following is an article by Tony Parsons of the London Daily Mirror.

Thought you might like to read it. It proves that, except for a few people here and there, we Americans are throughly hated by all our "friends." The greatest haters, are those we saved. It is ever thus, yet we never learn. We are still "protecting" those who should now be able to do that for themselves.

"SHAME ON YOU AMERICAN-HATING LIBERALS
by
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."

[SGT T]

NOTHING MORE TO SAY THAN"YOUR GOT THAT RIGHT"

SEMPER FI GUNNY THANKS FOR THE GREAT POST