An Inclusive Litany

9/12/01

After recounting the events of the previous day, China's Xinhua news agency presents what purport to be spontaneous reactions from American citizens, September 12, 2001:
The most important thing for the U.S. government to do is to find out why such tragedy has occurred in the United States, the only superpower in the world, many Americans say.

"I was shocked and sad, but I know how foreigners look at the United States: it is the world police," said Mary Mims, international office administrator of a law firm based in Richmond, Virginia. Mims told Xinhua that the U.S. should be smarter than before and should make friends with other countries.

"It's the most terrible thing I have ever seen in my life," said John Wilson, an attorney who came here for a meeting and stuck in the city. He said the nation has incurred too many enemies in the world, "therefore, it is not strange that such things happened," said Wilson.

[Ed.: The London Times reports that in southwestern China, Muslim separatists are regularly executed.]