Checked this out and found it to be true, an article

written for the one-year anniversary of 9/11.

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, 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 terrorists 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 semiautomatics 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 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.