It is right that New York has a fine new building, opened today by President Obama, as a memorial to the unspeakable horrors of 9/11 and built on the site where the Twin Towers were attacked in 2001. It was inspirational to use the salvaged steel tridents from the demolished towers in this memorial to tragedy and bravery and, yes, let’s say it, to man’s inhumanity too.

The architect has succeeded in building on the images of the skeletal remains of those wrecked towers – remains that became themselves vivid images of barbaric destruction.

I shall never understand how anyone could plan such an act of horror or what it must have been like for the victims on that day of terror.

I can only sympathise with the bereaved and hope that they can find some kind of peace in this beautiful new building.

In remembering the nearly 3000 people killed that day, we should not forget the man and his vile organisation that planned those most cynical of attacks.

It was only right that the USA and some of its allies went to Afghanistan in an attempt to end the poison that was Al Qaeda and it was good that their sympathisers, in the Taliban government were toppled – even if the internal problems of Afghanistan are far from over.

It was a tragedy when the World was united against the brutality of al Qaeda, that America and Britain blurred the issue with the ill-conceived and illegal war in Iraq managing in one act of war to reverse international sympathy and strengthen the numbers in Osama bin Laden’s murderous organisation.

There are other memorials to that day apart from the new building in New York. The latest are the ruined Syrian towns in a civil war now four years old and turned into the World’s latest horror story with a resurgent Al Qaeda firmly in place distorting what had begun as a genuine revolution against a brutal dictator.

Remembering the 3000 9/11 deaths, I add to their numbers the many thousands who have died still in the terrible years since 2001. It is too easy just to throw out numbers but the new 9/11 museum will also remind us that behind those statistics are individual human beings like 9/11 victim, Marisa Dinards whose charred purse is as eloquent a memorial as any building. Let’s remember her and all the other victims of these times, in the USA, in Iraq, in Syria and wherever else 9/11’s legacy tears apart people’s lives.

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

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There have nearly been as many killed in Syria during the country’s civil war as died during the Iraq War ten years ago even though the figures for civilian deaths in Iraq were conveniently left out of the allied forces’ calculations. While we mark the tenth anniversary of that painful and bloody conflict, it might be useful to wonder what other Middle Eastern countries are in line for the United States’ and Britain’s next  ‘crusade.’ President Obama is in the Middle East this week just as TV news channels show the latest horror story from that region – the apparent mass killings in Syria with the use of chemical weapons. Which side in the conflict committed this act is still inconclusive but, if chemical weapons really were used, it is the first time since Saddam Hussein’s terrible attack on his Iraq’s Kurdish minority twenty years ago and the second such horror since the First World War.

President Assad of Syria is blaming the opposition army and they are blaming him. Whoever is responsible, the only certainty is that more Syrian civilians, adults and children, have died.

As a humble Brit with no personal connections with the Middle East, I’m horrified that, first Iraq and now Syria have been the scene of such carnage. Ten years after President Saddam’s gory humiliation and killing, the Middle East is still in chaos and this time it is President Assad who is the focus for our horror. So is it time for America and Britain to sharpen their sabres again and to charge into battle on their latest ‘Crusade’ – I think not. The West has certainly been slow to the point of carelessness in acting to arm Assad’s opponents when, just possibly, they were still a gathering of innocent rebels. The delay has allowed time for a sinister gang of armed Al Qaeda sympathizers and their like to join their ranks and, probably, to pervert their ambitions. Atrocities are now being performed on both sides in this conflict and the West is left wringing its hands and issuing sympathetic platitudes to the dying and the bereaved.

The United States should remember the hatred and chaos it allowed when President Bush mishandled his shocked country’s response to 9/11. When the World offered its sympathy to a violated nation, Bush declared war behind a smoke-screen of half-truths and, yes, lies, with more than a little help from Prime Minister Blair. He chose Iraq, which then had no connections with Al Qaeda, and diluted an entirely justified attack on Afghanistan that was, at that time, hiding Osama bin Laden and his followers. Ten years later, the USA and its belligerent partner, the United Kingdom, have become pariahs again in the Muslim world and, as such, have forfeited the high moral ground. It’s not our place to march into countries, toppling regimes and shouting about some brave new world of democracy. I believe, and hope, President Obama knows this. Let’s use diplomacy and financial aid, for sure, if that is going to help resolve this nightmare but there is an organization much better suited to intervene in this conflict but sadly, it is one that remains eerily silent. What is the Arab League doing these days? Surely it is time that Arab spoke to Arab.

The post The West should be careful, it’s time for Arab to talk to Arab. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

I was proud to have been one of over one million people who demonstrated in London against the British government’s plan to attack Iraq. Was I right? History will judge.

Tony Blair: ‘I took this country to war because it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing for Britain and one day history will judge me.’

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