There’s is an awful lot of rather predictable tosh going on on the other side of the pond and sycophantic empathy on this. A lot of self pity for an iconic event in which America gets to portray itself as a Victim of Terror with thousands of innocent lives lost.
Geeklawyer was working as in-house lawyer at a start up when the Intarweb went down and mobile phones services gave “over-capacity” messages. We managed to get a browser going and saw the now famous images of the worst case of plane parking ever. My reaction was “Meh, what goes around comes around. You kinda had it coming to you: historically.” Yea shame about the dead, may of them were innocent, many weren’t. Shame about the innocent dead in Iraq; shame about the deaths of Afghanistan civilians; shame about the deaths of those innocent detainees in Guantanamo tortured to death by SS/US-Marine guards.
Whining self-pity may make you feel good but it doesn’t address the underlying causes that provoked these retributional acts by some stupid arabs; ones every bit as evil as the the Neo-cons who started the war decades before, for cynical political ends.
No additional packs of Kleenex tissues have been purchased in the Geeklawyer household today. But at least Geeklawyer didn’t buy a cake and throw a party.
GL, you have such a succinct way with words, no doubt the Bar Council and your Inn are ever so proud. However, you have a point. Working in an American firm we naturally had 2 minutes silence (that was cocked up and went on for about 5 with everyone shuffling their feet looking confused) yet all I could think of was the good friend who on Monday I go and bury. As you know he was killed in Afghanistan (I’m not looking for pity, he knew what he was getting in to) and for what? Revenge? As I’ve said on my blog, as I watched the planes slam into the buildings my first thought was ‘Shit, we’re going to war.’
I think I am correct in thinking this is the first real attack on the mainland US. We’ve had it for years funded by Ted Kennedy and his friends at Noraid. I’m not an American hater however I find very little that is positive, bar WW2 (and that should never be understated), in US foreign policy since the country became a country and not a colony.
I compare the differing attitudes of 9/11 to 7/7. The general feeling from the US was ‘Who did that? let’s bomb em’ in the UK it was ‘Why did they do that? What did we do?’
This is obviously a raw wound for most Americans and I do pity the familys of those killed. But I also pity the families of the Iraqis, Afghans and of Paul McAleese.
I should say also that I regards British troops as innocent victims in this. My mantra remains: “Support our troops — condemn our politicians”. Some fights WW2 the Falklands were right to fight & were good wars — I’m no pacifist, but not this
I was in Manhattan that day; lost two friends who were working for Cantors, but I did not then, and do not now, have the remotest sympathy for the USA. As a nation, the septics got to experience what the rest of us, espcially those who grew up in London, Brimingham etc., in the 1970s, had experienced courtesy of the septics and their dodgy foreign plociy. Just a shame Kennedy didn’t last until today, especially if it meant that those extra few days would have prolonged an agonising death.
There are very few heroes involoved in the sorry mess; no ordinary man would begrudge the NYC firemen the torrent of top totty that came their way in return for the immense bravery and selfless sacrifice they displayed that day. Everyone else then and since, armed forces included, are victims of a fucked up oil grab.
Soz, spam box cot you. Just found comment & authorised it
It’s been pretty bad here on this side of the pond, with the annual pity-party below Canada. The planes dive bombing into the towers, I agree, were the act of retribution … for the hamfisted, arrogant swagger that the US has with regards to foreign policy.
I am waiting for the day, though it will prolly never come, when it’s no longer a pity-party and more of a case of self-examination.
I remember where I was when I got the call telling me to turn on the TV. I gasped, and felt sorry for the victims, but I almost punched the air in delight that a) revenge had FINALLY been exacted by potentially any one of dozens of wronged countries b) the average American Joe would actually start paying attention to their countries’ 200 year policy of being the worlds’ Mafia Godfather, and perhaps do a little something towards putting a stop to it.
Unfortunately, what actually happened was they started watching Fox News. That’s the biggest atrocity the terrorists committed.
Do you think Britain got what was coming in the 7 July bombings? Spain in the Madrid bombings? Your attitude about the US bombings is disgusting. While it may be true that the anniversary is remembered rather too melodramatically, the people who died were in fact innocent of any wrongdoing. They didn’t deserve to die that way as you suggest. I’m shocked at your lack of compassion and your bitterness toward the American public.
Yea, I do kind of think we got what was coming to us. We created part of the problem those people were fighting against. By we I mean Tony Blair and Neo-Labour.
As for the American civilians: some were innocent, some were financiers benefiting from the ‘War on Terror’ hardly innocent. And as for the American people generally: I think a great many are dumb, but that’s because they are isolated xenophobic and arrogant: as a Brit I recognise the consequences of empire. It doesn’t make me bitter; just unsympathetic. And right.
Do YOU think that Britain got what was coming to it when the IRA was bombing all over the place and the US was helping?
I think Britain was incredibly stupid to pitch its lot in with the US. Additionally, Spain is less implicated in recent stupidity, but has its own history with Islam, rather distinct from ours.
Compassion is due to the individual families, rather than to the American nation as a whole, I think.
No. We got what was coming to the Unionists/Loyalists. Equivalence is a cliche & a cop-out