This may be off the Europa topic but since it's an international forum it may
suit.
When Afghanistan had the earthquakes that destroyed their cities and the lives
of their people, Americans were there with food, supplies, people, and money.
When the Kurds were being used as guinea pigs for Saddams chemical warfare, we
Americans put ourselves in harm's way in their defense. When the falling of the
Soviet Union created countries that found nothing wrong with their "ethnic
cleansing", Americans were at the fore front of the UN Peacekeepers. We have
"loaned"
countries billions of dollars that never got repaid in order that they
would not fall to their knees.
If anyone has ever been through a divorce, death of a spouse, son, or daughter,
or lost their homes to a disaster, natural or manmade, then you got to know who
your friends really are. Friends are not those people who don't call or stop
by to offer assistance, but stood by you in your hour of need.
Well now I think it's time for our friends to stand and be counted. In word and
in deed.
Mike Duane, San Jose, California (ex-New Yorker)
This was a letter posted on ABC News Message board:
God knows how many innocent lives you took this morning, and how many
more have yet to be found in the aftermath of your cowardice. And for
what purpose? Why did so many Americans have to suffer? What did you
hope to gain? Did you expect to horrify us? You succeeded. I seriously
doubt, however, that you can begin to understand the consequences of
your actions.
Like so many of your ilk, you have created an edifice to chaos in the
expectation that it will destabilize our national community. And I know,
---From the outside, that we appear ripe for fission. We carry with us a
national laundry list of turmoil. Race and gender relations, our
economic class separation, urban unrest, our educational system, our
bureaucracy, even our national moral dilemmas -- all of these issues
have plagued us for decades.
And yet, despite all of our problems, we remain the most free and open
society on Earth. I don't think you see us as we are; indeed, we are
simply the greatest country in the world, and you have forced us to
prove it. I want you to watch carefully the next few days and weeks --
this is not a nation of victims. Watch the hospitals, the schools, the
blood drives. Watch us care for our dead and injured citizens, and the
families of those citizens. Watch us, and watch carefully, as we rebuild
an even greater future on the rubble of our past. Can you create
anything in your cowardice? Or can you simply destroy that which has
been built by better hands than yours?
And what of our aforementioned national unrest? You underestimate us
again. For all our frailties, our heinous mistakes, we have always
forgotten personal disputes and pulled together in times of severe
crisis. We have weathered greater storms than these, and we will again.
Do you think that Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt were mere cultural
and historical anomalies, born to lead? No. They were simply Americans
thrust into historic situations who acted according to conscience. We've
got 250 million more: men, women, and children.
The day will come -- and soon -- that you will pray that you had never
underestimated the inexorable resolve of the American people. A
newscaster here in my city described your actions as leading to "the
darkest day in American history." Watch carefully, for you are about to see our
finest hour.
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