Sept. 11 Anniversary: Sorrow and Anger Around the World
"It was not supposed to turn out this way," says the Daily Inquirer in the Philippines.
"Five years after the attacks of September 11, 2001," says Le Figaro (in French), "America has more enemies in the world than it had on any front. Who would have predicted that in the rush of solidarity which followed the nightmare of carnage?"
Sorrow and anger dominate the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the international online media. As the New Straits Times in Malaysia reports, "newspapers across the world have strongly criticised the US response to September 11, accusing the Bush administration of bungling its 'war on terror' and squandering global goodwill by invading Iraq."
Only in the United Kingdom, Israel and Australia does post-Sept. 11 U.S. foreign policy find significant editorial support. Take for example this editorial from The Australian: "False security is the biggest danger" -- "The West is involved in a long and deadly struggle, a war on terror that cannot be wished away. Naysayers in Australia who play down the threat of terrorism against this country's citizens are ignoring the facts. Al-Qa'ida was already reaching into the region to target Australians as the planes slammed into the World Trade Centre."
Among other countries allied with the United States, disenchantment is pervasive.
In Pakistan, the leaning U.S. ally in the effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, The News said the U.S. campaign to combat terrorism has amounted to "Five Years of Nothing."
"Looking back it would be hard to say whether the years have been spent in something meaningful or constructive," said the national daily. "Many would agree the world is a more dangerous place and the United States is nowhere close to winning the war on terror."
In European commentary, disenchantment with the United States is common. Germany's solidarity with U.S. has waned since Sept. 11, says Deutsche Welle.
"After the attacks on the USA in 2001, Germany's readiness to help knew no limits," says the the German broadcast network. "Five years later, this is no longer the case,"
The global ambitions of the Bush administration are especially lamented. For Spiegel Online, Sept. 11 is "The Endless Day" -- "Nine-Eleven" has entered the English language as a metaphor, an abbreviation even bigger than a millennial milestone: 9/11 broke through Fortress America, turning it into another country. George W. Bush has tried to turn the planet into another world. And failed."
"America's aims and ideals have been noble," says the Times of London, "but they have often been poorly articulated, and the execution of policy, particularly in Iraq, has been shamefully inept at times, at a huge cost to the reputation of the United States and its capacity to pursue worthy goals in the global arena. ... But it is wrong to conclude that this is what September 11, 2001, is all about."
"It allows us to avoid core issues that are uncomfortable to contemplate. How liberal can liberal societies afford to be? How "multi" a multiculturalism is wise? Is a clash of civilisations emerging?"
In the Arab online media, the tone is harsher. Five years after the attacks, the United States is feared more than al Qaeda and President Bush's call for a "crusade" in the aftermath of 9/11 still echoes.
Bush's "hasty retraction and weak explanation never really succeeded in explaining the expression away," say the editors of the Gulf News. "Nor have subsequent actions taken by the US government or its collaborators proved to be anything less than what was originally feared: a Christian Evangelist attack upon Muslims."
For the Arab News in Saudi Arabia, President Bush's war on terrorism "is simply an imperial war to subjugate whatever part of the world is in the 'against-America camp' -- and a sizeable portion of this anti-US population is in the Middle East. Today, exactly five years on, there is still international turmoil, but this turbulence must not be blamed solely on the murderous perpetrators of 9/11."
The editors of the Iran Daily say solidarity with the United States in the wake of the attacks now coexists with indignation.
"People who identify closely with western values and have also unequivocally condemned the killing of nearly 3,000 innocent people on 9/11, want to ask the American people two questions. How many more civilians outside the US must be killed because of the actions of your government and its false claims to make America safer? What makes your life more precious than that of Arabs and Afghans, hundreds of whom are being killed everyday with US bombs and missiles because they have different value systems and do not want to think like you?"
Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, columnist for the Saudi Arabian-based Asharq Alawsat, says that both the West and the Arab world have developed simplistic views of where terrorism originates: Westerners see "a problem linked to the loss of the means of expression" in autocratic Arab countries," while "the region's governments say it is the offspring of the missing justice in the Middle East, such as the Palestinian cause."
"The truth is that all of them are avoiding their direct responsibility by blaming the political climate, which is true as a whole but is not the core of the problem," concludes Rashed, the general manager of Al-Arabiya television. "There is a contagious and dangerous disease in the region called extremism and it cannot be blamed on the lack of democracy or the Palestine cause alone."
In Israel, Jerusalem Post columnist Anshel Feffer says the United States needs to reorganize to combat militant Islam: "To be able to battle such a diverse and widespread enemy, the West has to set up a new NATO-like framework that will pool the necessary intelligence and resources and act as a true alliance, not merely as group of countries each helping the US in its own way, with varying degrees of reluctance," he writes.
Now is the time for the United Sates to change direction, says the Daily Star in Beruit: "A good start would be to draw a distinction between terrorists such as Al-Qaeda and legitimate resistance groups such as Hizbullah and Hamas, whose aims are largely political and nationalist. Unlike Al-Qaeda, resistance groups have a territorial base and legitimate political grievances that can be resolved. Addressing these grievances through an even-handed peace process would go a long way toward making America safer."
In Asia, there is skepticism about the effectiveness of the U.S. response. In China, the government-controlled People's Daily asks "How has US anti-terror strategy lead to more terrorism?"
How 9/11 Hit Home in Other Countries:
The Hindu in India: "The Three 9/11's" -- "There were three 9/11s in history. The New York one of 2001. The neo-liberal one of Chile 1973 [when President Salvatore Allende was overthrown], and the non-violent one of 1906 -- Gandhiji's satyagraha in South Africa. The authors of all three tried to change the world. Two brought bloodshed, destruction, misery, and chaos. But the Mahatma's WMD -- Weapon of Mass Disobedience -- helped change the world for the better."
El Universal (in Spanish): For Mexico, "highly harmful" consequences -- "The change in the priorities of the American government relegated to us to a lower position, the increased rigor of the border monitoring caused serious incidents and our economic and commercial relation, already affected by loss of competitiveness with other nations, suffered the burden of big military expenses."
Radio Free Europe: "Crackdowns Loom Behind Central Asia's War On Terror" -- "The region's governments are cracking down on domestic dissent under the pretext of fighting terror."
Radio Netherlands: Dutch novelist Lydia Rood tells how 9/11 ended her marriage.
In Vietnam, the 5th anniversary of September 11 was noted on page 8 of the country's newspapers according to the Vietnam News Agency.
By Jefferson Morley |
September 11, 2006; 12:01 PM ET
| Category:
Global
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Posted by: P. J. Casey | September 11, 2006 02:38 PM
Did our response to 9/11 fail? Lets look at the broad picture.
1) Al Qaida is marginalized. Maybe not decapitated and dismantled, but then partisan movements are notoriously difficult to move against so thoroughly, particularly with local support such as they must be receiving on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region. Still, they can pump out enough tapes to keep Al Jazeera in stock footage for a millenium, stuck in the mountains, with his bankroll on ice, and his people scattered, dead or captured, he's really no threat at this point. You idiots in the media make too much out of mere survival as a form of victory. If anything, these guys should be hanging their heads in shame for their utter failure to do anything other than hide in a cave while their foot soldiers do the hard work of absorbing American bullets.
This goes for a lot more than just Al Qaida, really. Why in the hell were the media playing off Nasrallah's surviving the Israeli invasion made out as some kind of victory? The region of Lebanon he controlled is devastated, his operational capability hindered severely, even if not destroyed, and his supply lines are cut. Hannibal did better in the mountains.
2) One thing that has come out of 9/11 is serious international cooperation at the institutional level. Sure, the government leaders can point fingers and hurl rhetoric all they want, but the operators, the intelligence agencies, law enforcement, they've got it through their heads that its on them to be the adults and get the job done, and the recent snag in Britain is one of the outcomes of that. Score one for the good guys.
3) Iraq. Iraq was a mistake, at least how the US went in. The BS about Al Qaida and WMDs wasn't needed. The animal in charge needed to go, bottom line. What's come of it since then is the result of the FREE CHOICE of the Iraqi people. They've got the freedom to make their own decisions, and their poor judgement has been to pick up their old vendettas and go for each other's throats. They want this war, or it would not be happening. That is not a fault of US intervention, except that we freed them to make that conscious decision on their own. Maybe Saddam wasn't so bad after all, eh?
4) International goodwill. Who needs it? Its fickle, unreliable, looks great in print, but generates little in terms of hard results. I don't care if you hate my government. So long as you stay out of its way, you won't get flattened. And yes, remember Europe, all those US bases peppering the landscape? We covered your collective asses for 50 goddamned years. Be grateful you have this opportunity to spit at us.
Posted by: James Buchanan | September 11, 2006 04:21 PM
I completely agree with many of the postings of the foreign media, most of which, one can generalize, is due to the fact that the Bush Administration's actions after 9/11, most especially Iraq have led the US to loose credibility and to unite the Muslims extremist against us. We are not safer five years later, plots continue to brew and one of them will get through on US soil. I find it incomprehensible that Clinton was impeached for having an affair yet Bush has not been criticized or impeached, or really taken out of office since his actions have cause so many problems. I though the US was a democratic country that believes in freedom of speech and of religion . . .why cant the administration understand that the Muslim's prefer a form of government that includes their religious beliefs. Bush did not finish in Afghanistan when he attacked Iraq, creating a power vacume that has been filled by Iran, and alienating Syria a country that his own father Bush Sr. often sent representatives to for consultation and inclusion. What is happening now is that the Bush Administration has made things in the Middle East worse and therefore unsafe for Americans everywhere.
Posted by: Mary | September 11, 2006 04:37 PM
Jeez Mr. Buchanan, with such authority you speak!
1. "Al Qaida is marginalized..." - If so why do you boys keep using it to scare the rest of us?
2. Goes against what you said in point 4.
3. If it's their free choice to fight each others, why are we still hanging around for? Let them be. Who are you to impose on other people's free choice?
4. See point (2). Besides why then would the NATO general go around begging other countries for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan. Why Condi bothered with the French about Lebanon? What is all this negotiation at the UN about sanctions against Iran for? Just go it alone like you did in Iraq.
Don't talk. Don't spin. In war there is no substitute for victory. Winners don't need to spin.
Posted by: James Joyce | September 11, 2006 04:58 PM
1) Frankly, I don't. I do not fear Al Qaida, even as I'm well aware that the best defenses will inevitably be breached, and another attack will happen. Maybe it'll be Al Qaida, maybe not. Hell, another militia could rear its head, and the next attack will be a buncha domestic types like MacVeigh and Nichols. Its not an attempt to invoke fear (not from me) but vigilance. Vigilance because marginalized ISN'T dead and decapitated, and they have the tenacity to bounce back if not constantly pressured.
2)Cooperation and goodwill aren't the same thing. Cooperation is an institutional attribute. The Italian people can burn Old Glory and wipe their butt with the Constitution, but when the Italian intelligence service tells me they've got a buncha guys talking about kicking my country in the nuts, we oughtta listen, and return the favor if they're being targeted. Consider the French, nominally, they are the biggest rhetorical pain in the ass the US has to contend with this side of the old iron curtain, yet its the French diplomats who play good cop to our diplomats bad cop, when Bush's cronies don't get their fingers into the mix, and with that odd pairing, some serious negotiations have moved forward.
3) Amen, the worst mistake we've ever made is trying to shred the Iraqi culture and impose a parliamentary democracy. Honestly, they ought to have decided for themselves, even if it meant a tribal government. Heck, we should have considered splitting the country in three and letting each faction have their own nation to build. Hindsight's a pain, isn't it?
4) The simple answer, because the Bush Adminstration bungled Iraq so horribly, we can't afford it. I believe whole heartedly there are people in Bush's White House looking hungrily at Iran, but the reality is, we can't foot the bill. Because the bulk of our military funding is tied up in Iraqi occupation, the commanders in Afghanistan are screwed, and lets not even put this new force in Lebanon on the table.
Aside from which, I'm pretty sure there are more than a few players just as happy we're not involved in Lebanon, what with us being so unequivacably behind Israel in the matter. We couldn't call ourselves unbiased in that operation with a straight face. (Well, maybe Rummy, Rove, Bush, & Cheney, but then, they're extremely practiced con artists).
Posted by: James Buchanan | September 11, 2006 05:40 PM
Here we are...5 years later...another 3000 dead, and we can't even keep control of a dinky little dictatorship that we've toppled...Mission Accomplished!!
Iraq has become a magnet and training ground for those who wish to hurt America....I have begun to refuse to use the word 'terrorist', because when you say 'The terrorists win' or 'we have to get the terrorists' you have unintentionally lumped together this incredibly disparate, uncoordinated swath of uncooperative people, many of whom have no idea of each other's existence:
"Are you the Judean Poeple's Front?"
"We are the People's Front of Judea!"
"SPLITTERS!!" <-battle ensues..
How can you combat 'Terror'?
Better yet, how do you even IDENTIFY a terrorist? Do you think most terror groups are affiliated with Al Qaeda? How large is the average terror group? What does it take to become a terror group? Do you have to fill out a form and wait for Osama to stamp it once you've blown up a certain number of busses?!
When your enemy is a CONCEPT, how do you wage war? Do you strike the word from all texts, Dictionaries and Thesauruses? Do you try and win the hearts and minds by proving yourself the more honorable country by trying to help all of those who've become disenchanted with democracy see that not all democracies are created equal?
Naw, let's invade a couple of countries, topple a couple of foreign governments, kidnap people to secret prisons.....lie about those prisons, then torture the inmates because we're the 'Good Guys'!!
I have no sorrow for Afghanistan, you buggers supported the Taliban, and got what you deserved....and not enough of it either....the Taliban is making a comeback...and where's the US to keep them down? We're not in Afghanistan anymore Toto! At least not with anywhere near sufficient numbers.....
The Taliban didn't get what it deserved, Osama's running free....and for those of you who think he's like a scared little girl hiding in caves......he's been living in caves all his life, this is no change.....in fact, it probably makes him look all the better to his idio-...I mean followers, because he's enduring hardship for a cause! He's not scared, he's not running, he's free, and we haven't done a damn thing about it!
What a ridiculous concept....War on Terror...morons....
And who do we include in the list of terrorists? Do we include th PLO? Of course...Hamas? Of course... Hebollah? Without a doubt... The IRA? Well...umm...no, not so much.. An Abortion Clinic bomber? NOWAY! He's making a stand about something he believes in!!
Turns out you pretty much have to be Arab and live in, come from, or otherwise look like anyone who's ever been to the Middle East.
QUICK! Someone tried to use a magnifying glass to start a fire on the plane! Everyone give up your prescription glasses, one of you may have replaced a lens with a magnifying glass...
Or tried to blow up their shoes.....
Doesn't anyone on the GOP side of the aisle have any sense of conscience about the 15k+ civilians deaths in Iraq that we've caused? We may not have killed them ourselves, but if cooler and more accurate heads had prevailed before we invaded, maybe those 15k would still be alive....well, some...Saddam would still be there...
Don't misunderstand me, I shed no tears for the bastard called Saddam, but it's not our business to go around toppling governments we don't like, unless they ACTUALLY ATTACK US....it's up to us to take out bad dictators....we can't even ditch our own...
Posted by: Fred Evil | September 11, 2006 05:54 PM
Exactly how do you consider AlQueda marginalized Mr. Buchanan? Fighting is raging in Afghanistan (again) IRAQ is a mess which unless pigs fly, Bush/Cheney ET AL will never admit it to being a mistake.
On 9-12-01 we had the world on our side, and our country was like one sole undivided. Now let's see where we are, pretty much every country that was a friend of our country in the past aren't, we are hated by a majority of the world and not only are we going broke and our kids and grand kids going broke in financing an ill conceived adventure in Iraq are losing many lives in IRAQ and those returning wounded will be maimed and broken for life. There was never enough troops, or support placed in Afghanistan to begin with, nor has there been a lot of pressure from this administration to find Bin Laden, that the countries writing these articles belittling our administration are for the most part correct and right in doing so. Bush squandered any good will after 9-12-01 this country received. Yet you have him and Cheney out there beating the drums on how well everything is going and how not to trust anyone but them to make us safe! The foreign countries of the world must hold their sides in laughter and tears when they see the debacle this administration has created in the middle east. Because many of these same countries are close enough to IRAQ and IRAN and the rest of the middle east to know this is going to affect them also.
What a sad day 9-11 was for our country and the world, yet the choices this administration made in the aftermath may also lead to one of the saddest and most violent decades in our country. Thanks Sue F
Posted by: Sue Filutze | September 11, 2006 05:56 PM
The fighting in Afghanistan is the Taliban, which is NOT Al Qaida. Al Qaida wants a nice quiet friendly place to plot new attacks, the Taliban kinda wants the country we took from them back.
Part of me says that marriage of convenience isn't what it used to be, we haven't seen Omar in a while, so there's some questions begging there about whether the goals of these two groups really align all that well anymore.
As far as Saddam, hey, Germany didn't attack us either (not openly, some saboteurs were taken on the East Coast), but we flattened'em nonetheless once Japan gave us the excuse to get rolling. Pity the men who ran the country back then don't have modern equals, eh?
I have no problem with going out and cutting the head of monsters in power, even if they respect their borders and keep the bloodshed contained. Didn't have a problem with it in Serbia, wouldn't have a problem with seeing American troops tying Janjaweed militiamen to posts and burning them alive, either. Really, I didn't have a problem with a lame excuse putting us in Iraq, anyone with half a brain knew the WMD was a shellgame, its just the thinking behind the strategy that makes me want to scream.
Posted by: James Buchana | September 11, 2006 06:25 PM
How do we fight a war against a group of people within a population? How much of a country's population do we need to kill to subdue the terrorist within? Do you know? Should there be limits? Why do you believe world wide war is the way to fight terror rather than police work and special operations?
That's what I wish Mr. Russert would have asked VP Cheney yesterday.
Posted by: Dona Dunsmore | September 11, 2006 06:52 PM
James Buchana - "Really, I didn't have a problem with a lame excuse putting us in Iraq, anyone with half a brain knew the WMD was a shellgame"
So are you saying the GOP as a whole, has less than half a brain? Just checking...
"hey, Germany didn't attack us either"
What do you call the hundreds of tons of American shipping at the bottom of the Atlantic? The result of a policy of protectionism, which is what the GOP used to batter Democrats into giving -W- the authority to use military force...
"I have no problem with going out and cutting the head of monsters in power, even if they respect their borders and keep the bloodshed contained."
I do....whose to decide who is a monster and who isn't? The latest GOP halfwit? I realize it's not popular, but the UN should be the place for the start of that kind of action...and the UN of today isn't up to it...we need to give the UN some real teeth, and keep programs like the eviscerated 'Oil for Food' honest...it's a great concept, but the UN has NOT panned out like anyone would want...
Posted by: Fred Evil | September 11, 2006 07:58 PM
Bush exploited September 11th to pursue his own blood feud with Saddam Hussein. He lied to the world to justify the war he started. And now the world knows it.
Bush, and America, stand discredited forever.
Thank God the EU can step in and play a world leadership role.
The U.S. is no longer fit to lead itself, let alone any other nation.
It is a lawless, warmongering nation led by a proven incompetent.
Posted by: Antonio | September 12, 2006 12:46 AM
"Then a crack developed in our marriage..."
The Dutch author on her memories of 9/11Column by Lydia Rood
Quite frankly, Lydia must have had a lousy marriage to begin with loosing her marriage with her Moroccan husband on September 11. That day I happened to be in Casa Blanca and was totally scared about my wife's safety working only 3 blocks from the WTC. Some 20 Moroccans with families and kids came to my office and waited till deep into the night untill I finally spoke with my wife. These Moroccans cared deeply.
Posted by: Anagadir | September 12, 2006 09:32 AM
Antonio wrote:
--It [America] is a lawless, warmongering nation led by a proven incompetent.--
And what country has not had this misfortune? What is important to remember is that in America we are a democracy and though we may make a mistake it can be repaired by the will of the people. That is about to happen in 2 months. We will clean up our mess as we did with Nixon and the Vietnam war. However Iran was not allowed to improve itself due to the guardian council removing many from eligibility to be elected. Al Qaida will never be able to vote for its leaders. The closest it came to that was the apparent targeting of Zarquawi by his own associates. And who elected Nasrallah? The arab nations have had the same leaders for decades with little their population can do about it except revolt.
Churchill said: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." That still applies today. America will right itself, watch and see. We may currently have an incompetent as a leader, but the majority of Americans understand that now. Help is on the way...
Posted by: Sully | September 12, 2006 12:50 PM
P. J. Casey wrote:
--I also like the Beruit Stars comments. Terrorism is a method of warfare used by many different people representing many different causes. It is a result of a lack of dialogue on issues that were not resolved politically. As the Star noted Hamas and Hizbollah are nationalists, and seek to settle land Issues with Israel.--
The conflicts are not border issues. Maybe you should look at the charters of Hamas and Hezbollah:
THE CHARTER OF THE HAMAS (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm):
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it"
The Hizballah Program:
(http://www.ict.org.il/Articles/Hiz_letter.htm):
The Necessity for the Destruction of Israel: We see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought until the hated ones get what they deserve. This enemy is the greatest danger to our future generations and to the destiny of our lands, particularly as it glorifies the ideas of settlement and expansion, initiated in Palestine, and yearning outward to the extension of the Great Israel, from the Euphrates to the Nile.
Posted by: Sully | September 12, 2006 02:10 PM
Antonio:
Iraq was not a personal vendetta between W. and Sadham. Saying so puts you in a similiar, if polarly opposite, camp as the people that believed it was because of WMD and later removing a dictaor, freedom, and all those other warm and cuddly ideas.
Iraq was about an attempt to set up a prosperous "liberal democracy" to serve as a counter point to Iran's system in the most oil rich region on Earth. It is a widely held belief in foreign policy circles that autocratic regimes in the ME are living on borrowed time. We can either try to prop them up or we can let them fall. Propping them up could be extremely costly, a doomed mission from the start, and morally highly objectionable. Currently the only precedent for a non-autocratic state in the region is Iran. Islamic fundementalist regimes are seen as being likely confrontational towards the West and having norms that are antithetical to those of the West.
The thought of such regimes controlling the lion share of the world's most valuable resource is understandably troubling to policy makers in Washington. The neo-liberal hope was that a nascient democracy in Iraq would grow to be peaceful, prosperous, and above all interested in stable relations with us (the West).
Now I will certainly grant that the neo-liberal theory has not panned out. Most thought that it would not. It was just an unfortunate historical accident that such an idelogically motivated foreign policy was put into office with an election dominated by domestic issues. In general the ideas that have formed the basis of US foreign policy for the past two administrations are regarded as just as naive and perhaps a good deal more dangerous than traditional Wilsonianism given the world we live in today.
On a seperate issue:
The EU can only play a leadership role as far as other powers are willing to cooperate. They have no real means of coersion. No one is afraid of France or Germany using their militaries to actually enforce anything. Partly because the political will is almost completely absent and mainly because European countries simply do not have the ability to project power even if they wanted to. Any major international deployment absolutely depends on US logistical support. You can play peacekeeper, which we appreciate, but you can't fight a sustained conflict outside of Europe and the world knows it. We in America would love to see the EU as an equal peer in the world; as a real partner in preserving stability. Unfortunately until Europe decides to make sacrifices and make the necessary investments that simply cannot come to pass. It appears that Europe is quite incapable of even weening its population off the artificial social "rights" of the second half of the twentieth century. Those rights were a bit easier to afford when we were spotting your defense bills. Its going to be a tough pill to swallow but the sooner the better for Western Europe and the world at large.
Posted by: jmcd | September 12, 2006 04:51 PM
To Fred Evil
I'd think the Republicans would be doing much better if they collectively amounted to half a brain. The portion they have has some interesting ideas, but the effective follow through appears to stem from the missing parts.
Posted by: James Buchanan | September 12, 2006 05:16 PM
I feel the same way about the Democrats...both sides have good ideas, and both sides have BAD ideas...I just find that the Democrats bad ideas involve a lot fewer dead foreigners...and a happier country...
Posted by: Fred Evil | September 12, 2006 06:19 PM
The Australian newspaper, quoted as being editorially in support of US foreign policy, is part of Rupert Murdoch's world newspaper empire, and should not be seen to necessarily reflect Australian public opinion in its editorial pronouncements on anything to do with George W. Bush, who is a Murdoch favourite in fact.
The Australian Labor Party, currently in opposition, calls for Australian troops to be withdrawn from Iraq immediately. The Australian Greens Party has a similar policy.
Posted by: Gene ( an Australian) | September 13, 2006 01:57 AM
James Buchanan
To use your words.
I sure hope some day your government will "get flattened".
It's included in my daily prayers.
Posted by: J B | September 13, 2006 10:07 AM
Thank you George Bush for exposing America for the blundering idiot it is. Now we in the rest of the world can move forward with no further illusions about U.S. "leadership." This would-be "leader" stands exposed as a menace to world peace, an imperialist bully with a warmongering agenda and contempt for international law. The challenge for the rest of us is how best to constrain and rein in the danger represented by the United States of America and its fanatic president. What is the next "pre-emptive" war he will wage, one wonders. How many more hundreds of thousands will die to satisfy his delusions?
Posted by: | September 15, 2006 06:25 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
There are so many excellent comments from the Media around the world that it is difficult to know where to begin.
The comments from the Hindu were to the point, but using the term Neo-liberal to describe the coup in Chile is incorrect. American Liberals of that period opposed the coup in Chile, and they would not have touched "Free Trade" with a ten foot pole. The Nixon Adminstration would I am sure taken an exception to being called Liberal in any form. The coup in Chile was in support traditional economic Imperialism using Latin American conservatives in a subversive fashion in place of an American invasion and the bother of governing Chile in the aftermath of a war. This was not unusual in Latin America where conservatives have often made their economies subservient to European powers or the U.S. We now have the Bush Administration betraying America in a similar fashion to the Latin American conservatives. Compared to Nixon, Bush is an incompetent Imperialist.
I also like the Beruit Stars comments. Terrorism is a method of warfare used by many different people representing many different causes. It is a result of a lack of dialogue on issues that were not resolved politically. As the Star noted Hamas and Hizbollah are nationalists, and seek to settle land Issues with Israel. Along with Iraq, they did not attack the U.S. on 9/11. U.S. policy should be to mediate and solve the differences between Israel on the on side, and Hizbollah, the Palestinian groups, Labanon, and Syria on the other side. This is the only way to stop the missiles, bombs, and terrorism in those countries. The U.S. needs to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.