Posting is so much better than forwarding...
You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.
So an Australian dentist wrote the following to let everyone know what an American is... so they would know when they found one. (Good on ya, mate!!!!)
An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek.
An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan.
An American may also be a Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.
An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim.
In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan . The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.
An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.
An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.
The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence , which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.
An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need.
When the Soviet army overran Afghanistan 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!
As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.
Americans welcome the best, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes, but they also welcome the least!
The national symbol of America , The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America .
Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. I've been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 other countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.
So you can try to kill an American if you must.
Hitler did.
So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world.
But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. All who hold to that spirit anywhere, is an American!
Author unknown
Pass this around the World
Monday, October 10, 2005
To Kill an American
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1 comment:
Wow, that's an amazing bit of propaganda there.
Our dentist glosses over quite a few significant and interesting things in his fervor to promote America, as I'm sure you've noticed. The most glaring:
When the Soviet army overran Afghanistan 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!
...as well as training various religious extremist groups, with the express purpose of creating a 'jihad' against the Soviet Union. Once the Soviets left, these groups grew (unchecked, since those who trained them had long left for American soil) and eventually formed what we now know as both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.
As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.
Does this include the munitions dropped on the poor people of that country? What about, for example, when the US government ordered the government of Pakistan on Sept 16, 2001 to stop all food convoys to Afghanistan? Or when humanitarian aid groups such as Oxfam or Doctors Without Borders or the UN World Food Program -which had been operating in Afghanistan well before September 11th, because there was already a large portion of the population starving- were forced to stop all aid to Afghanistan because of the threat of bombing? What about when an estimated 3-4 million Afghanis were faced with starvation as a result? Or when the US military finally began air drops of food, and they happened to land in minefields?
The national symbol of America , The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America.
Very true for the beginning of America's history, however I think many tired and poor Mexicans, for example, might think differently as they are rebuffed from American shores and borders. Forced to illegally enter the country that "welcomes the best", doctors work menial jobs, picking fruit on farms for wages no "true American" would ever accept, all in the hopes that they will someday gain the respect they left behind at the border.
I don't suppose I need to go any further. I also don't presume that you, as an enlightened professor at a university, agree with the entirety of our dentist's well-meaning but misguided and ignorant rant. I should say, however, that I do think most Americans are as appalled as you and I are about the actions their country takes in their name. I too believe that "[we] are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom", and I hope that someday soon we will stand up and take action to stop our country from doing things that make other people want to kill us.
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