In the Loop: I couldn't have said it better

March 1, 2003
The United States was architected with three branches of Government — legislative, judicial, and executive. Today, however, we have four, the latest government office being Hollywood

The United States was architected with three branches of Government — legislative, judicial, and executive. Today, however, we have four, the latest government office being Hollywood and the general media, a bunch of clowns who’ve taken it upon themselves to steer the thinking, actions, and direction of our Nation.

In light of their recent campaign — running ads, staging protests, and verbally attacking people far more intelligent, honorable, and patriotic than themselves — I would like to say something. As fate would have it, however, someone else already said it better, Tony Parsons, a writer for the Daily Mirror, a British newspaper. These are his words, edited to fit, written a year after the September 11th attack on America.

“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 11th was up there with Pol Pot’s mountain of skulls in Cambodia and the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in 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.

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, 2001.

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, and realize that America has never retaliated for 9/11 in anything like the way it could have.

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. But 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 U.S. 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. It is 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.

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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