Posted on 09/19/2007 12:30:55 PM PDT by Froufrou
Apart from marring an otherwise captivating, often beautifully written story, the Pakistani-born writer [of "The Reluctant Fundamentalist"] should have known better than to make the same, common mistake made by countless others (Sen. Joe Biden called for a moment of silence this morning for nearly 3,000 dead "Americans"): that 9-11 was simply about America.
-snip-
Two hundred and nine citizens from 36 other countries were also killed. That's close to the 224 mostly East Africans killed in the 1998 Al Qaeda bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and more than the 191 mostly Spanish people killed in the 2004 Madrid train bombings. Fifty-two people were killed in the March 2004 London bus bombings, less than the 67 Britons who died at the World Trade Center.
Six years on, as this same ideology increasingly targets non-Americans -- Muslims included -- one also whether the true "symbolism" of 9/11 has yet to be fully grasped, by the Bush administration as well as its bitterest opponents.
"If we are unable to do a better job than our enemies of influencing the world's perception," write Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli and Maj. Steven Smith in a forthcoming issue of Military Review, "then even the most brilliant campaign plan will be unlikely to succeed."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I’m sure there’s a point to this article, but I’m not able to grasp what it is. That islamofascist terrorists will kill anyone and everyone, regardless of what we used to call color or creed? I already knew that.
Trouble is, most people don't know that. They still think it has something to do with US foreign policy.
I’ve always felt that there’d be less anti-war sentiment had we done a better job of getting our allies on board a lot sooner and in greater number, since their citizens also perished.
But instead, by not emphasizing that, we’re practically seen as complicit in their demise, if you can believe the nutty professors out there.
9-11 was an attack on American sovereignty ... that other foreign nationals were among the dead is irrelevant. 9-11 is all about Americans, as it was an attack on American interests, on American soil, violating American airspace, and killing primarily American citizens.
Islamic radicalism, taken broadly, is an international problem ... but 9-11 was not an international event.
H
...It’s not just about us? That’s funny - I thought 9-11 was all about the evils of the United States and our foreign policies over the last 50 years....
Certainly US leaders and media types should do a much better job of explaining how 9/11 killed citizens of 36 countries and struck at world trade and politics broadly speaking.....
BUT, the same fact about the 36 countries of the victims ALSO points to the depravity of so many leftists and jihad-sympathizers around the world who have acted as though it’s just an “American” problem.
FOr the UK, for instance, the 9/11 carnage represents the worst terrorist carnage of its citizens ever (unless you include the World Wars in the comparison, but they obviously are a very different issue). YET, so many in the UK still think and act as though it were just “America” that was attacked......
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