I happened to be a long way from my home in Memphis on 9/11/2001. I was currently on assignment in Lisbon, Portugal. It was mid afternoon there when the attack happened, and was really only covered at the time on TV by CNN International.There was no G4 network to send me live video, but I had dozens of text messages telling me to turn on the TV. I saw the attack on the second tower, and the subsequent collapse of the towers, My first feeling was shock. Once I got a little more news, I got angry, and once I found out who was responsible I wanted to go get the bastards (We Scots like to do that), although I was too old and had a disability that would prevent me from that.
Once over the initial shock, I started reading the local press that happened to have an English edition, and RDP English broadcast for foreigners. It was pretty much stock NBC footage. A lot of the comments in the local press disturbed me greatly. I don't speak Portuguese well, but I could understand that "America deserves it", and "Those arrogant bastards have it coming". Remember these are our "friends". I didn't see the solidarity that the MSM portrayed here in the US about the attack on our territory. Most was "what you got what you deserved".
A few days later I was in Spain, and had pretty much the same reaction. Platitudes from the government abounded , but the average person just shrugged his shoulder and said we had it coming. Spain learned the hard way, about jihadist Islam a few years later when Al-Qaeda attacked a railway station in Madrid.
I haven't been back to western Europe since 2002, and plan no trips there in the near future. They are no longer our friends and allies, with the exception of the United Kingdom, but with another 4 years of Barack Obama that may also change.
I have been to Eastern Europe, and specifically Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Folks there have just the opposite view from our traditional allies. The fear not only a revived Russia and seek out our protection, and fear Islamist's in nearby countries, and the havoc they will bring once civil unrest breaks out there. In the Asian countries I've visited, I've had mixed opinions on the 9-11 attacks that range from almost universal horror and shock in the Philippines to celebrations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Our "friends" the South Koreans, who we protect from the tender mercies of Dear Leader, are pretty blase, and consider it an American problem that doesn't affect them.
This gets me back to the original topic. We all will mourn the loss of over 3000 Americans just doing their job when attacked by Muslim jihadis 10 years ago, but to think that the world stood with us is a myth, especially our so called NATO allies.
World opinion should never matter when it comes to American national security, We need to do whatever it takes to keep out country secure, within the laws and constitutional authority, and the UN and "world community" be damned.
As we remember the attacks on 9-11, please keep in mind that this was an unprovoked attack on American territory by zealots who care nothing about human life, and want to impose a global Islamist caliphate, putting the world under the totalitarian 7th century legal and religious code of Sharia law.. A tragedy is when a parent loses a young child, or a young person contracts a fatal disease in their prime of life. These events were not a "tragedy", they were brutal acts of war.
We need to get back to America First. Our national survival depends upon containing Islamist imperialism, Chinese expansionism, Iranian quest to control the middle east.
Update: I should mention that our only real friend in the middle east is Israel, and "our friends the Egyptians" are busy burning down their embassy during this Arab Spring.
