The Price Of Freedom? (Attacks on America)

Member Name: kfingleton

Product:	Attacks on America
Date:	14/09/01 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: We will all have to learn some big lessons

Disadvantages: Where do I start?

No one will ever forget the events of September 11th 2001. Roosevelt’s words of a “date that will live in infamy” may have described the worst atrocity on American soil in the last century, but his words still resonate after this week’s events. Those who have declared that the world will never quite be the same do so with complete seriousness, because it never will. But out of even the worst situations, hope and good still sprout from the rubble and the dust and this situation is no different, I hope. So what lessons are there to learn? Who is to blame? Here is my view.

Some say that America is the greatest nation on Earth. They defer to it and bow to its supremacy. Tony Blair is one such person who holds the United States in such deference, but I am not. The truth is that the beast that the English, Dutch and Spanish settlers created can be a very ugly monster indeed. From far-right extremists, discrimination against black and Hispanic minorities and America’s uneven treatment of nations around the world, it is clear that America is no Utopia. But not one of America’s citizens, from the banker in the World Trade Centre, to the General in the Pentagon and the fireman in the street, deserve personal so-called 'punishment' for the evils that America has created since its own creation in the 1780s. Every country has its evils. The point is to wash them away, not to blow the country apart to eradicate them.

I would presume that everyone reading this agrees that no American deserves to die because of the criminal actions of its leaders over the past few generations. I cannot stress this enough, but it is the leaders of America in the past that have instigated the evils, this is not an attack on Americans, it is an attack on their government and right-wing feelings. From Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, the leaders of the world’s strongest nation have committed atrocities just as evil as th
e evil deeds we witnessed across the States on Tuesday. The likes of Reagan, Nixon and Bush senior (funnily enough, all Republicans) have practically committed murder in the name of democracy and freedom. The likes of Cuba and Iraq are still starved of the chance to prosper in the world. How does America believe it can win the hearts and minds of innocent people whom it impoverishes with its sanctions? We must not lose sight of the fact that the American government has been at the very heart of so many evil deeds across the world, but not faced the condemnation that it should have from other leading nations.

It supposedly has now faced ‘retribution’, although why innocent city workers, commuters in the air and brave members of the emergency services had to pay such a price is beyond my comprehension. The terrorists may only achieve their own destruction by their cowardly act. By destroying one of the world’s largest structures, by hitting the heart of the American defence system and by delivering a blow to American pride they may only make America (a unilateral nation under Bush) a very active nation in the international community, but only in the worst possible way for not only the terrorists, but the rest of us too.

You cannot declare war on an invisible enemy, but that is what a lot of Americans want and what our government supports. Mad reactionary views from Republican congressmen should be dismissed straight away, unless we want to plunge the world into World War III. I am not trying to use scare tactics here; war is a very real possibility. In a court, is it the victim who decides what the sentence should be? The victims of the madness on Tuesday are not all dead, it is Americans at home and abroad who are the victims. They are hardly in a position to pass sentence on the perpetrators of the crime. The UK is should be detached enough to be able to direct America to a less red-neck response. But because ‘o
ur’ government (we are not ‘your’ people, Tony) constantly feels the need to pander to the Americans, Blair and his cronies cannot stop themselves from supporting any mad war strategy thought up by Colin Powell and the rest of their lot.

In its short history America has a lot to be proud of, especially in the field of human endeavour. They have put men on the moon; they helped defeat fascism, rebuilt Europe and Japan and fuelled the communications revolution. But America can not let its arrogance and pride run roughshod over the world because of a personal vendetta against one Middle-Eastern man, however evil that man happens to be. It is one thing to be proud of your nation, but maybe a lot of Americans should try to learn something that they have been very short on for a long time, humility. By all means, bring all the people connected with this act to trial, but what sort of trial is it that blows them all to hell without a thought? If the attack on Tuesday was really an attack on democracy, as Mr Bush says so, let him prove it by taking a legal, democratic and civilised decision and put these men on trial in a court room, not a battle field. We will never forget Tuesday, despite not knowing anyone who perished, I mourn the dead. But let them not die in vain, can we not learn a lesson from all of this?

Summary: