[Peace-discuss] There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy

[Matt Reichel]

I had passed this around on another list. Fantastic article!

Far from being equivocal, Milne is generally the best editorialist at the Guardian, and one of the few voices in a major print daily with any sort of morality about him.

His piece from September 13th, 2001 ("They Can't See Why They're Hated") really resonated with me at the time:

"Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers
in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most
Americans simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the
streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable
assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with
overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a credible
account of who was actually responsible.Shock,
rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition
of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities,
sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States
is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries,
but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps
it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull
firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the
connection between what has been visited upon them and what their
government has visited upon large parts of the world." . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/sep/13/september11.britainand911

To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net
From: mkbrussel at comcast.net
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:43:02 -0500
Subject: [Peace-discuss] There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy

>From the Guardian, UK. Its editorial stance regarding our wars and occupations is in general equivocal,
but this article by Seumas Milne hits the nail on the head. For example, In the western world, far from the scene of the unfolding catastrophe, such suffering [in Ira and afghanistan] has been somehow normalised as a kind of background noise. But the impact on the aggressor states, both at home and abroad, has only begun to be felt: not only in the predicted terrorist blowback finally acknowledged by Tony Blair last year, but in a profound domestic political alienation, as well as a loss of standing and credibility across the globe. How can anyone take seriously, for example, US or British leaders lecturing China about Tibet, Russia about Chechnya, or Sudan about Darfur, when they have triggered and presided over such an orgy of killing, collective punishment, prisoner abuse and ethnic cleansing?For the remainder, see  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/20/iraq--mkb
_________________________________________________________________
Watch “Cause Effect,” a show about real people making a real difference.  Learn more.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_watchcause
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20080322/5b3c817d/attachment-0001.htm