A divided world remembers Sept. 11, 2001

updated 1:35 p.m. ET Sept. 11, 2006

PARIS - The nations of the world joined Monday in solemn remembrance of Sept. 11 — but for many, resentment of the United States flowed as readily as tears.

Critics say Americans have squandered the goodwill that prompted France’s Le Monde newspaper to proclaim “We are all Americans” that somber day after the attacks, and that the Iraq war and other U.S. policies have made the world less safe in the five years since.

Le Monde itself wrote an editorial stating that “since Sept. 11, America has not, it’s true, been attacked on its territory, but the world has changed for the worse.”

Heads bowed in moments of silence in tribute to the nearly 3,000 killed in the attacks but dissident voices brushed the portrait of a planet that has traded in civil liberties and other democratic rights in its war on terror.

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel — an advocate of closer ties with Washington — had veiled criticism of the United States, saying: “The ends cannot justify the means.”

“In the fight against international terror ... respect for human rights, tolerance and respect for other cultures must be the maxim of our actions, along with decisiveness and international cooperation,” she said.

The international landscape has changed irreversibly since terrorists hijacked four airliners in 2001, crashing two into New York’s World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and another into a Pennsylvania field.

Allies in the U.S.-led war on terrorism that the attacks unleashed renewed their resolve Monday to fight fanaticism, while militants blasted Washington’s response as ineffective and pledged continued resistance.

In a video broadcast Monday, al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri warned that Persian Gulf countries and Israel would be al-Qaida’s next targets and he called on Muslims to step up their resistance against the United States.

“You gave us every legitimacy and every opportunity to continue fighting you,” al-Zawahri said, addressing the U.S. in the video, which appeared to be new. “You should worry about your presence in the (Persian) Gulf and the second place you should worry about is Israel.”

He also accused the governments of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia of supporting Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Other video posted on the Internet, purportedly by al-Qaida, showed previously unseen footage of a smiling bin Laden and other commanders in a mountain camp apparently planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark joined many when she said: “No, we’re not more secure since 9/11.”

Clark said more should be done to reach out to moderate states and leaders in the Islamic world to encourage understanding between different peoples, and to help end the sense of alienation and exclusion among some young Muslims that fuels extremism.

Reaction from Europe
In Europe, whose own soil has been struck three times since Sept. 11 by terrorist attacks, commemorations touched each nation.

Bells tolled in Rome’s city hall square. In London, bouquets of white roses and yellow carnations were piled in a memorial garden where the names of 67 Britons killed in the New York attacks are inscribed — and where a steel girder from the wreckage of the World Trade Center is buried.

At a 38-nation Asia-Europe summit in Helsinki, Finland, leaders stood in silence in a circle. The stock exchanges in Nordic and Baltic countries were observing two minutes of silence to honor the victims of the world’s worst terror attacks.

“9/11 will be in our memory forever,” said Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni during a ceremony in the a downtown piazza designed by Michelangelo. “We all remember where we were, what we were doing, what our first reaction was.

France’s President Jacques Chirac, in Helsinki, reiterated in a written message to President Bush of his nation’s “friendship” in the fight against terrorism.

A week after the Sept. 11 attacks, Chirac flew over the World Trade Center site — the first foreign leader to pay personal condolences. That solidarity quickly dissipated into rancor in the buildup to the Iraq war, when Chirac led opposition to Bush’s plans.

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