"The Price of Loyalty"
Mr. Paul O'Neill was in Japan when the 9/11 Terror occurred in the US East Coast in 2001. He watched the news program in the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Then, from the US Air Force base at Yokota, then US Secretary of Treasure flew back to the U.S. on a military plane.
"The Price of Loyalty" by Ron Suskind is one of the very absorbing reports on the US politics and its characteristics.
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I also watched the news on TV in the night of September 11, 2001.
First, on switching a channel, they said that there was a fire in Washington D.C., and I saw a somber concrete building in fire. "Is a fire rare in Washington D.C.?" Then a TV announcer said that there was another fire disaster, too, in New York. "Rare coincidence?" And then, they presented a World Trade Center tower belching out black smoke from the upper middle of its structure. "Attacks!"
It was around 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. here in Japan; though I was busy at the time and could not stop my work, I continued monitoring the TV screen which also presented the unforgiven collapse of the two towers.
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The leaders of Al Qaeda did not reportedly expect collapse of the entire WTC towers. They only expected the collapse of the upper part of the building. Just two commercial jet planes cannot destroy the New York City or the US economy.
The large-scale attacks to the Pentagon and other core facilities of US Government in the capital, however, are an act of war, especially when combined together with the NY attacks.
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Subsequently, if the U.S. had completely destroyed the terror group and arrested main culprits or enemies in Afghanistan, and deftly driven out leaders of a longstanding hostile country in the Middle East to eradicate a potential danger of another attack on the US homeland, things today might have been very different.
It seems that the true motivation and intention of the US President on his order to attack Iraq, whether consciously or not, has not been fully understood or revealed. His honest view and assessment on the terrorists in Afghanistan, whether consciously or not, have not been clearly understood by, or presented to, the world citizens, either.
And, whenever I hear the number of casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, I have come to think that they are people, without doubt, living on September 11, 2001, just like me.
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Hence, the Great Tsunami Disaster, in a magnitude observed once a century, hit the largest Islamic country Indonesia in late 2004, killing more than 150,000 people; and Pope John Paul II died in 2005.
The age seemed to be getting into the worldwide and historical stage, not only as an episode of the U.S. and its young history.
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I do not know how I was tested on September 11, 2001.
But, you may see it, though I cannot present any absorbing report like "The Price of Loyalty."
"THE LORD'S SERVICE WITHOUT ANY RESERVATION"