Asia remembers Sept 11, questions US response
( 2003-09-11 16:16) (Agencies)
On the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Australians remembered loved ones and U.S. embassies across Asia lit candles but regional media highlighted waning sympathy for the United States.
In the Australian city of Sydney, environmental group Planet Ark joined Americans and U.S. diplomats to plant 3,000 native trees in memory of those killed when suicide hijackers flew airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
Casting a shadow over the commemorations, repeated throughout Asia, was the emergence of a new videotape showing al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden praising those strikes. It underscored just how much remains to be achieved in the war on terror declared by President Bush two years ago.
"The attacks on the U.S. did indeed rouse the 'mighty giant' Mr. Bush spoke of at the time," said Hong Kong's South China Morning Post in an editorial.
"But the world's only remaining superpower must realize that the 'with us, or against us' approach, and in particular the further use of aggression, will only fuel the hatred which motivated the attacks in the first place."
These were sentiments echoed around the region -- from the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, to former U.S. foe and now trading partner, Vietnam. They served as a reminder of U.S. military actions that have divided the world in the past two years.
The Australian parliament observed a minute's silence in memory of those who died in the attacks.
In Hong Kong, the U.S. consulate lowered the flag to half-mast.
In Tokyo, yellow-robed Buddhist monks led a group of 20 people to pray for peace outside the U.S. embassy and protest against war in Iraq.
"When the terrorism occurred, I think people all over the world sympathized with the United States. But I think the United States has lost its power with its acts over the following two years," said Yogo Nomoto, a 37-year-old local government worker.
"I think what is being asked of President Bush is to stop the fighting in Iraq immediately," said Takao Takeda, a monk who organized the protest as the group banged small wooden drums and displayed a banner reading: "No More War! Non Violence!."
"This war against terrorism is likely to go on for years and nobody can regard themselves as beyond the reach of terrorism," Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a close ally of Bush, said on Australian television.
"COLLECTIVE ENEMY"
"There is a collective enemy in the gunsights of the terrorists and they are all people who are trying to preserve and build free societies," Howard said.
But Howard's views were questioned by newspapers -- and the public -- across Asia.
"I still feel for the American victims. The United States has since become more aggressive, but that's due partly to the September 11 attacks," said Hong Kong trader Ashley Wong.
Editorials were more outspoken about the fallout from the U.S. response that has now drawn its army into quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan and failed to net bin Laden, the suspected September 11 mastermind.
"Two years after September 11 ... America instead goes toward a path of self-isolation and being unilateral in action," said an editorial in Vietnam's People's Army newspaper.
Australia's Sydney Morning Herald was more outspoken.
"The goodwill of America's allies has been squandered," it wrote. "The threat represented by the terrible attacks of two years ago remains."
In Indonesia, site of the world's worst post-September 11 attacks when bombs killed 202 in Bali nightclubs last October, the Jakarta Post took a similar tone.
"There is also the fear that, unless it is carefully managed, the war against terrorism is likely to be perceived in the Islamic world as a crusade against them," it said.
"But, so far, President Bush is not only far from rooting out terrorist networks and getting to the core of the problem; he has triggered the emergence of more terrorists in the world."
Australian Charlotte Osman, who planted one of the 3,000 trees in the Sydney park, was working within sight of the World Trade Center and saw the second aircraft hit.
"It's hard each year, last year I climbed the (Sydney Harbour) bridge, this year I'm planting trees, something to say 'I'm still here I'm not afraid'," she told Reuters television.
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