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What's New at Berlin
September 27, 2001
 Dear colleagues and friends:
It's with a heavy heart that I sit at my keyboard to write a new "what's new at Berlin Metals" letter. The events of September 11th still weigh upon all of us. The shock, sadness and anger that these evil and inhumane murderers have thrust upon us are feelings that we will carry for a long time. What's new at Berlin Metals isn't nearly as important as the problems of many other people. My heart goes out to everyone who lost a loved one that day, but it must be especially difficult for the majority of the survivors to move on with rebuilding their lives without the symbolic closure all societies look for, a body to lay to rest. To date, only about 300 bodies have been recovered from the World Trade Center.
I know that our government is working hard in cooperation with other world governments to help make sure an attack of this magnitude on innocent people never happens again. Sadly, the news we've been hearing about crop dusting planes, hazardous waste hauling trucks, terrorist cells in Europe and the ease of movement these terrorists have around the world, make us feel that another attack is not only possible, but likely.
I hope that the tragedies that occurred 2 weeks ago at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a lonely Pennsylvania field weren't really a surprise to our government. I hope that they were already aware of the enormity of the threats we face but didn't want to alarm everyone and that they were working hard behind the scenes to protect us. Maybe they felt they didn't need everyone's help until now. But I think they did. I hope that these tragedies will, at the least, serve to strengthen everyone's determination to fight this terrorist campaign in all of its aspects, from it's birth in the anti- U.S. propaganda that finds too many receptive audiences in many impoverished countries to its death in the suicide attacks these fanatics aim at innocent people.
Should these attacks on September 11 have been a surprise to any of us? Not if you look at the list of steady attacks against us over the last 28 years. These attacks have all been carried out in the name of Palestinian nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. Are we more surprised or scared because these last attacks were on our own soil and that civilians were targeted and that the number of dead was so great? Weren't we scared, sad and angry when in:
1973, our ambassador to Sudan was murdered,
1976, our ambassador to Lebanon was murdered,
1979, militant Iranians seized our embassy in Tehran, holding US citizens hostage for over a year,
1983, the US embassy was attacked in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 49,
1983, suicide bombers blew up a truck next to the US marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241,
1984, TWA flight #847 was hijacked and the hijackers beat a US citizen to death,
1984, the US embassy annex in East Beirut was bombed, killing 2,
1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a US citizen was executed,
1986, terrorists hijacked Pan Am flight # 73 on its way to Karachi, Pakistan, killing 17 passengers,
1988, terrorists blew up Pan Am flight #103 over Scotland, killing 270 innocent civilians,
1990, Iraq, without provocation, invaded Kuwait, threatening the stability of the whole Middle East,
1993, the World Trade Center was bombed for the first time,
1996, the Khobar Towers were bombed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. soldiers and many Saudi civilians,
1998, our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were both bombed on the same day, killing hundreds,
2000, the USS Cole was bombed from a rubber raft, killing 17 sailors?
As these incidents happened, it was easy for many of us, myself included, to look at them singly, not seeing them for the consistent and escalating series that they were. With this latest, it's certainly gotten a lot more serious. The size and brazenness of the World Trade Center tragedy seems to have acted as a catalyst to spur cooperation and coordination of governments around the world. With this it appears that we're on the right track now. But it also seems clear that there isn't one single act that will keep us safe but rather a long and interconnected set of actions that will over time have the positive result we all desire.
It appears to me that what these terrorists have attacked now is not our soldiers or overseas diplomats and representatives but ourselves and our prosperity and our peace. They've emerged from a lower overseas profile where we could always look at their assaults as symbolic, rising far above that level now. It's clear that they feel if they could find a way to kill hundreds of thousands, they would. I think that they see our prosperity and peace as a threat. If our prosperity is shared by all in the world, then they who rule with ignorance, terror and fear will lose.
So, in a local way, working to keep our economy healthy is part of what is needed to win this battle. At Berlin Metals, we're always working hard to do our part to provide quality products, on time, to our customers at competitive prices. I'm sorry to sound corny or melodramatic, but this is what we need to do to help all good people win this battle against inhumanity, against those who believe that killing innocent people is a good thing. We're not soldiers, nor diplomats, we're businessmen and businesswomen. This is our job.
If we all want to be free, and if it's true that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, then let us be vigilant.
Best regards,
Roy Berlin
Rberlin@berlinmetals.com
Other Newsletters:
July, 2006 July, 2005 March, 2004
September, 2003 January, 2003 April, 2002
May, 2001 January, 2001
August, 2000 April, 2000 |
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