Niall’s virtual diary archives – September 2001

Wednesday 12th September 2001: 11.11pm. Woke up about an hour ago, spent three hours in siesta - was tired after a stressful day and indeed period since I last made an entry - indeed, spending time in Ireland is always stressful.

Yeah, I got my one week of holidays and did the dutiful thing. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy myself there, but I'd hardly call it relaxing. I got there Sunday, spent Monday dragging stuff out of storage, Tuesday caught up with my sister in town as well as buying stuff, seeing a neighbour childhood friend who is deliriously happy with a new girlfriend and whom persuaded me to go out clubbing with him and her. It was interesting, she's definitely a good find and he seems very happy with her. I also met in the club a fellow I was at school with and he spent some time telling me I was the finest the school had ever produced and it was being looked forward to seeing what I would accomplish. Fantastic huh?

Anyway, I spent Tuesday night on a couch which to be honest gave less cause for allergy than my bed at home (and might I add, my allergies go mad in Ireland during summer, it's like being sick as a dog but you never get better) and on Wednesday I ran out of money as I drank a Murphy's stout with an old school friend still around in Cork. Wednesday night I packed up my stuff, cos on Thursday morning I set forth with my father to Northern Ireland to visit my grandfather, from which we returned late on Saturday with my flight back on Sunday. Regarding my grandfather, the old fellow still seems to be ticking along, and amazingly I do believe he is actually getting less conservative with age. It's only been noticeable in the last two or three years, but definitely so – I have suggested maybe it is do with being at death's gates (he has nearly died the last two summers in a row) that has forced a rethink on many matters. Especially as historical anecdotes would suggest that he was very liberal in his much younger days, certainly his life could not have happened as it did if he had not been. Anyway, tis a cause for hope that change for the better can always happen.

So that's pretty much from then till now. Work beckons as the primary concern for the remainder of the year. Free time is very limited right now, today I had to force by simply refusing to go to lunch with the meeting delegates today which was probably not well received but I'm simply not getting the time uninfluenced by work to do things like write in this diary or indeed actually any active and non-passive activity. It's only due to the siesta today that I am able to write this I think.

As probably you will have noticed if you've seen any of the popular media recently, there have been terrorist attacks on the US and a lot of civilian & military deaths in the loss of the world trade towers and one side of the Pentagon building. What has surprised me is that it took until now for it to happen – there are plenty of people not liking the US and this kind of attack has been predicted – even spoken of as inevitable – for many years by many reputable authorities, including the US senate committees themselves but also European, Chinese and Russian think-tanks. Obviously, the average US citizen has had no experience whatsoever with terrorism nor bombs exploding on US soil, so it has come as rather a shock to them, but they are always baying for blood and revenge.

But who? No country perpetuated this. This kind of military action has no obvious and clear source and hence it's very hard to cleanly strike back. It will be interesting to see what they will do, it is fairly obvious the attacks are Islamic in origin but most Arab states are friendly with the US having grown accustomed to the benefits of commerce. Even states traditionally against the imperial capitalism of the US such as Iran or China have softened considerably ever since communism proved unworkable in the long-term.

However, in all this the answer lies, even if it is an unpalatable one. I will just say now that I fully condemn the murder of innocent civilians and I empathise with the American people – however, I must say that ever since Russia was defeated, the US has more brutally treated others in its power games because now there is no chance of the recipients turning to communism. Furthermore, the recipients of US aggression also now have no one else to turn to, and thus being backed into a corner with no options out leads men to do things they would not have otherwise done. We are seeing the beginnings of this now.

The US took over from Britain as world leader of the capitalist and so-called "free world" around fifty years ago. They did this partly because Britain was broken by war, but they would have succeeded anyway with time because the US were willing to do things the British were not and furthermore they were better at committing atrocities without the mass public realising it. For fifty years the US have fostered coups, unseated governments, assassinated leaders & repressed entire populaces, religions and freedom in areas in which they had interest. Partly through complicity of the world media and partly through skill at using third parties to perform much of their dirty work, the evil perpetuated by the US government has gone unaccounted except to the more educated sections of western society whom have links to the educated sections of the suffering societies. If you go to most Arab or south American countries and speak with their intelligencia, you will quickly learn of US atrocities. India, Pakistan and China's media are unfettered by displeasure of the US (ie; loss of advertising revenue or licences) and there you find much more accurate reporting of (for example) mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians by Israel which is in fact a puppet government of the US (as are many south American and African countries).

The public of most western nations will feel for the US and will support their retaliation when it comes. They will not wonder to themselves why in the first place dozens of terrorists sacrificed their lives to strike a blow at a world power. No sane person does that, and it's hard to get a group of insane people to work together to kill themselves unless they have a very strong driving cause. Despite what western media will have you believe, these people aren't mad, they're just very pissed off having spent their lives watching themselves and their people suffering at the hands of the Americans and for them, the US has been at war against them for decades and so for them this is the first strike back as part of that war. They know the US will retaliate and kill more of their people, but since the US would kill them anyway (just more slowly) it makes sense to take some of the Americans with them. And with every retaliation, every child which loses its family will grow up into the next warrior ready to commit suicide to kill Americans. It will just make the problem worse.

All we need for these people to lay their hands on one of the many freely circulating hydrogen bombs and get it into the US. Don't get me wrong, this is where this is going. This is war and as the bloodshed rises more and more becomes morally acceptable for both sides. The question is if this war will take the world with it.

The only long-term solution is for the evil US government to cease their killing of innocents in the puppet governments they control and furthermore destabilisation activities by their secret services. The terrorists know who the puppetmaster is and as with Ireland vs. The British Empire in the 1920's, terrorism is the only effective military strategy of a small organised force against a massive conventional one which is too blunt to work and often just makes the terrorists job easier through creating new recruits.

Of course, this will never happen. The economy of the world's superpower is inextricably linked to their raping of puppet country's resources. If they stop doing that, their economy will falter and they will lose their superpower status very quickly indeed. So, realistically, they will try and maintain the status quo, and a lot more bombs and terrorist outrages will follow.

We are entering a new and uncertain time. I would like to think that if the US suffers a terrorist nuclear attack, it won't trigger the end of all life on earth, but I'm too cynical to believe that fully. I guess we can only hope, and try to avoid being anywhere on US territory during the coming decades as the civilian death toll mounts.

Be happy wherever you are!