In the intentions of the terrorist leaders their action was meant as a declaration of war not only against the United States, but the entire western world, its economy, its institutions and its values. In fact, the only historical event that could by some means be compared to this horrific crime is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. We all remember the tremendous amount of human suffering necessary to hunt down the aggressors.
Yes, it has a tremendous cost defending in first line the liberty of all free man in the world. America paid this price from 1941 to 1945, liberating Europe and Germany and laying the grounds for the victory of freedom and humanity in many other parts of the world.
However it should be remembered that, when the American nation took on this burden, there was another country that had been fighting for more than two years doing the same job in solitude. Led by Winston Churchill, the United Kingdom paid an even much higher price, as the Britains were attacked in their battered capital and they were fighting for mere survival. To their luck, after two bitter years, they found the best friends they could hope for to join their battle.
Since then the community of democratic nations has steadily grown and today among America's and England's sincere and undoubted friends there are many former enemies such as the Japanese, the Germans, the Italians and the Russians. "Ich bin ein Berliner," said president John F. Kennedy in the summer of 1961 at the Berlin wall, soothing our anxious hearts. Today the European people, from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and many other countries, are all proud to claim: "We are all Americans".
This is why the pictures from New York and Washington have rocked our souls, but they cannot rock the spirit of the free world. They are surely a menace to the safety of every single working man in the civilized world, but they can not menace the institutions of the community of civilized nations. In the end they can only strengthen the unity and the leadership of the alliance in the world.
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