"No One Would Come" Posted by Shadi Hamid

On Saturday, I heard Edward Gnehm - who was US ambassador to Jordan when 9/11 happened - speak on a very interesting panel on "the War on Terrorism Five Years In." Gnehm recalled how on September 11, 2001, a crowd had begun to gather outside the US embassy (in Amman). By then, it had become clear – America had been attacked by Muslim terrorists on its own soil. With this in mind, Gnehm and the embassy staff worried that the gathering crowd was a presage to another attack, perhaps part of some coordinated offensive. They were wrong. The crowd was there to express its solidarity with America after its great loss. Over the course of the next week, Gnehm recalled, 3800 Jordanians came to the embassy to express their grief and condolences. And then he concluded: if another 9/11 had happened today, claiming thousands of American civilians, no one would come. No one would come. Unfortunately, he is right.

Comments

[Reynolds]

I doubt he's right, when Britain had the 7/7 attacks even Iran denounced the attacks. I don't think we're the most popular kid in school anymore but I don't think the world, the entire world, would rejoice at our destruction.