fuckette

Life

- Chechen terrorists and Arab mercenaries slaughtered at least 335 people, most of them children, at a school in North Ossetia in Russia this September 3rd, 2004

-On August 31st, 2004 there was another attack conducted by terrorists in Moscow, where 9 more people were killed by a car bomb.

-August 24, 2004 - two planes explode in mid-air, killing 89 people - also responsibility of alleged Chechen terrorists (black widows in this case).

These attacks will probably not be the last on the Russian Federation.

- March 11, 2004 - Madrid, Spain - 191 people killed by Al Qaeda in a terrorist attack to a train.

Over 600 people (the latest attack involving mostly children) have died in these two countries (Spain, Russia) because of terrorism this year (We're not even including other terrorist attacks that have occured this year in several other countries, and we willingly choosing to stay out of the Arab-Israel conflict for this entry).

What's really bothering us lately is, at least from our point of view, that although people have shown solidarity around the world when these attacks occurred, we have not seen the outpour of sympathy or expression of rage and anger in view of these attacks, as we saw it when 9/11 happened. It bothers us because, if you ask any person around the world today what happened on September 11 2001 - they will know.

Yet, we are 80% sure that if you were to ask an average person (parts of Europe and obviously Russia are going to be an exception) what happened on March 11 2004, or on August 24, August 31 and September 3 2004, they most likely won't know, or, if American, they will tell you something about a hurricane and about Clinton getting a heart surgery.

From what we've been seeing in people's reactions, as horrible as it will sound, these attacks have been treated as second-rate tragedies - as though somehow they're not that important as 9/11 was, as if just because they were Russian lives and Spanish lives, they are not worth the same as those American lives lost in September 11.

You all saw the world change on September 11, you all saw the flood of media coverage all day everyday for around 2 weeks straight, you saw the rage and the anger and the indignation from everyone - especially Americans, obviously. An entire campaign of war was launched because of this attack! But what about Russia and Spain? Where is the solidarity from Americans, when the rest of the world showed compassion and solidarity for them in their time of need?

President Bush barely mentioned the Beslan School Siege for political gain, to consolidate his campaign and strengthen his speech. What is the US doing to protect those Russians that are still at risk today? Is the war on terror simply a US-made concept that is only valid for President Bush, Americans and Fox News?

What would have happened if terrorists had conducted this same attack in an elementary school on the first day of classes in places like Emeryville, CA or Paducah, KY???

After examining the lifestyle of Americans**, living in that country, finding out and looking at what its government does and has done throughout history (post WWII), immersing ourselves in the mindset of Americans (since 1996), we have come to the conclusion that Americans are the least "innocent" civilian population in the world.

We make this serious indictment, due to the fact that simply by maintaining their regular lifestyle and choosing, voting for or letting elections be hijacked by their own Supreme Court and allowing an imperialistic administration and a non-independent corporate media to continue spreading their brand of American "freedom" and "Jeffersonian democracy" around the world, the American people have, through their failure to engage in an intense, consistent resistance and omission in holding the US government accountable, indirectly assisted in vulnerating the will of the world and disregarding UN opposition, causing the world a massive, irreparable amount of damage.

And still after September 11, most Americans continued to fail to understand why some people could have harbored such hate for the US.

Yet, when Russian children in North Ossetia, or Spanish civilians in Madrid, are killed by terrorists - Americans are able to just brush the events off, and continue on caring about the Republican National Convention, Hurricane Frances and Bill Clinton's heart surgery.

Honestly, we are fed up with the double standard and the special VIP treatment that Americans continue to get in the world, not because they do not deserve to be cared for, but because they are not the only people inhabiting the planet and should not be regarded as the most important faction of the global community.

The fact remains that even though they are the biggest source of wealth and pop culture, they are also the most significant fount of instability and violence in the planet today.

We can understand that the international community considers Latin American elections to be always suspicious (because of the endless cases of corruption and high rates of crime in these lands) and thus they always send us international observers, yet in American elections, there has been no international observation up to this date. We can understand that the US has a bigger voice in economic organizations, because it produces more, consumes more and has the 2nd largest GDP in the world. We can even understand that Americans don't even need visas to get into most countries in the world.

What we can't understand, and at the same time find unacceptable, is the fact that the most discordant, uncongenial, wasteful, ignorant, arrogant and imperialistic group of civilian lives in the world, as are Americans, continue to be perceived as more valuable than the rest of the world's lives.

You mostly only hear about American casualties in Iraq (today reaching 1,000 due to a lie), American casualties in September 11, Americans are the ones fingerprinting and treating everyone who comes into their country like criminals, an American former president's surgery makes the news, it's bad to be "anti-American" but who says it's bad to be anti-Russian, anti-Finnish, anti-Kenyan or anti-Venezuelan? Not only that, but according to the US mindset, God (for those who believe in such an entity) only blesses America and to top it off, after Bush's speech, Americans are the ones who "are going to make the world safer"

Who gave them this authority? Must be all that false, venomous, self-serving rhetoric of "American Exceptionalism" and the "City on a Hill" fable. And then they have the audacity to wonder why anti-Americanism continues to grow. We guess, like they say here in Venezuela, "People get the government they deserve" - a careless, gullible, detestable populace* deserves treatment as such.

Maybe it will always be this way, hopefully just until the American empire starts to decline, but we will continue to stand by the rest of the world, caring for every life, no matter what nationality, including American, extending our deep heart-felt condolences to all those forgotten, underinformed, underestimated lives that have been lost and ignored simply because they were not American lives.

Until then, we will continue to mourn our losses and our abuses here in the rest of the world (opposed to the notion that the world is only comprised of the US) and keep voicing our opinion on this terrible and upsetting double standard that the United States has imposed on the rest of the world, making us feel like our peoples and our struggles are invisible, questionable, and simply not important.

Once again, we express our deep sympathy and solidarity for those lives lost in Russia, Spain, Iraq and so many other countries that have been forgotten by the US-led war on terrorism - you will always be in our thoughts and in our hearts, for your lives are just as important as ours.

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On Putin critics who want Russia to dialogue with Chechnya:

"Why don't you meet Osama Bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?"

- Vladimir Putin

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*As with everything, there are few exceptions.

**For the sake of clarity, we have replaced "most Americans" for just "Americans" - but we are aware that it is not all of them, just most of them.

posted by Collaboration of Global Citizens @ 18:11