Apparently Mr. Chretien believes we are to blame. Oh, isnt everything our fault? Heres a few excerpts:
Well excuse us for being a nation of abundance and wealth. Last time I checked that wasnt a fuckin crime. I guess by that logic it would be okay to kill all rich people, just because there uhh too rich.
What the fuck are you babbling about? That still makes no sense in explaining why you think that we did something to deserve thousands of people to die. And making these comments right after the 1st year anniversary is like pouring salt on a wound. So I say, Fuck you… and your mother too. If I were Canadian I would be ashamed you were my countryman.
I am sick and tired of certain people blaming the U.S. for encouraging such attacks. It is naive and ignorant. Nothing would justify that… fucker.
While I’m far from a fan of Mr. Chretien, I don’t see anything in there that could be intrepreted as ‘blaming the victims’. It is not automatic to say that the instant someone deviates from the line of “they hate our freedom – that’s why they attacked” that you are saying that the attacks were deserved.
Then again, this is Jean Chretien, a man who has a legacy of garbled speeches longer than Dubya could ever hope to surpass, and in two languages.
First things first… Cretien has been embarrassing us for years now, so this is nothing new.
But note the anger in your OP and the article you linked…
“Mr. Chretien believes we are to blame”
“Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien has linked the September 11 suicide attacks to the perceived arrogance and selfishness of the United States and the West.”
And what did he say?
“… That is what the Western world – not only the Americans, the Western world…”
So where do you see him blaming you Americans only? He is holding every Western nation to blame for the terrible tragedy.
Personally, I cringe everytime I hear Bush say, “the attack on our liberty and freedom” when it seems to me to be an act of retribution for decades of being the brunt of Western politics.
Ah, yes. Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister who speaks neither official language. I didn’t see anywhere where he “blamed” the “US”. He didn’t even make outright reference to the US with respect to the attacks but rather to the entire Western world. Of which Canada is a member, I might add.
He was merely discussing one possible contributing factor to the attacks, one which I find hard to disagree with. Nowhere did he say the the US deserved to be attacked. The timing could have been better, but that’s not his fault as these remarks were recorded in July. Why the CBC chose to air them when they did is an interesting question.
I just love Chretien. He may be a mumbling street thug, but dammit, he says what he thinks, and he doesn’t read his interviews off of a screen.
Perhaps when he says “it’s the time to be nice”, and that the West is perceived as greedy and self-satisfied (which it is), he means that America should be less self-serving and should look to solutions that don’t involve interference with the affairs of other countries in the form of warfare.
He isn’t saying “don’t be such an asshole; this is your fault”. He’s saying “don’t be such an asshole. You’re powerful enough not to be an asshole”.
I have to say the timing of that little interview being aired, (Sept 11) was poor concidering it was taped July 17.
That being said, I think he was more refering to the mindset of those who believe the US got what it deserved.
He said “we’re looked upon as being arrogant, self-satisfied greedy and with no limits” as opposed to we [BOLD]are[/BOLD].
I myself don’t see a link between poverty and what happened but I do see where those who wish to do the Western world harm would believe we are too rich or powerful and want to take us down.
I’ve lsitened to the speech and I’m certain he is not saying the victims were in any way at fault or deserved to be murdered.
I am tired of every person who speaks openly about the causes of 9/11 having their roots in American behavior being crucified. This is not to say that American civilians deserved to be killed, nor that America is to blame for the actions of terrorists, but rather that, objectively, there are reasons why America was attacked and not some other country.
America has its problems and we do tend to have arrogant foreign policy. Saying that it would be a good idea for the West to consider that our wealth compared to overseas poverty is going to affect how we are seen abroad and, thus, affect the emotional grounds of terrorism isn’t anti-American. What’s more anti-American is implying that people have no right to say such a thing.
Raygun99 makes an excellent point. We are not being attacked by senseless, evil demons who only wish to see suffering and wish to destroy Truth, Freedom, and the American Way. We are being attacked by people, misguided and callous as they might be, with real motivations that are based in (real or perceived) wrongs committed by the American government. Does that justify killing thousands of civilians? Of course not. However, the horror and atrocity of the attacks does not mean that we can do no wrong, nor that it might not be a bad idea to see how prevalent anti-American hatred is or what we can do about it.
He did say that, but I think its pretty clear that he’s putting the majority of the blame on America.
I agree theres more we could do to prevent anti-American sentiments. I get the feeling tho, this is one of those things where we are damned if we do and damned if we dont.
And I cringe every time I hear people say crap like that. There might have been all kinds of reasons for those sick fucks to have hated the American government. But they didn’t attack the American government. They slaughtered thousands of innocent people.
That’s not retribution. That’s just plain mass murder.
Okay, let me see if I got this straight. He’s not blaming America, but the entire Western world. Why? Because the Western world is rich, and the middle- and far-east are poor?
Hmm… all right. I’m poor. Does that mean I can go blow up Bill Gate’s house?
No, he’s saying we shouldn’t pretend like we don’t know that the root cause of terrorism is poverty and that by fixing poverty, we’d be a lot further along to stopping terrorism than by bombing people and just giving them something else to be angry about.
