[SOC] 9/11

[Chris Redding]

Well said, Paul.
Yes, I think many Americans were puzzled by the air of 'sad acceptance' of
the British, and maybe found it slightly offensive.
Perhaps you were therefore even more puzzled as to why we also felt a
painful blow here from a fist which landed 4000 miles away.

Well, it's 'family'. It's like how you feel the first time your kid comes
home from school with a black eye and a bloody nose. You knew it would
happen someday, you remember how it was for you, and you want to go round
and introduce his attacker to Mr Baseball Bat.

I missed the Luftwaffe (or rather it missed me) by twelve years, but bombing
and slaughter are part of our folk memory, and until recently the IRA kept
the memory fresh and 'topped-up' amongst later generations, with a new
massacre of civilians every year or so to keep you de-sensitized to the full
horror.
Oklahoma and Pearl Harbour apart, until 9/11 nothing could happen in the
USA, nobody would dare to even try, apart from maybe your own 'enemy
within'.
But now you have had your beloved homeland and people bombed by outsiders.
We know and understand
how you
feel. These are new emotions to you, but not to us. That is why we feel and
sympathise so much with you.

Bury and honour your dead, but sadly you must accept that something like
9/11 will happen again.
The only way to prevent this is for you to make your excuses, skulk -
whimpering - off the
global stage and shut the door behind you. This is what Al-Quaeda (seeing a
newly-elected 'isolationist' president) wanted you to do. But it is against
your nature to do this.
The British know that we are also targetted for such attacks, we are
surprised they haven't happened
already. They don't even have to cross an ocean - like the IRA
and the 9/11 hijackers, they are probably already here. When (not 'if') it
happens, our response will not be disbelief - we know it is
coming - but sad acceptance, seething anger and desire for massive
vengeance.

We like vengeance, in fact we have a little boat called 'Vengeance'. Perhaps
you would like to take a peek at it on:

www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/177.html

Our 'muted' reaction to these disasters does not infer that we are somehow
'braver' than
you, or 'feel' less than you...far from it. But the first cut is the
deepest, and you will find that
you just get used to it. You will know what I mean the next time...it won't
hurt as much.

Chris G4PDJ


----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Bartlett <paul@fulking.freeserve.co.uk>
To: <soc@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2002 8:25 PM
Subject: Re: [SOC] 9/11

The Brits in the office had had more than enough experience of the
activities of the IRA (who I believe have killed more people in the last
30 years than died in the WTC) and seemed to have had an air of
sad acceptance (along with a good deal of anger), whilst the
Americans amongst us exhibited pure disbelief that such a thing could
happen on the continental US.