Peter JW Siebelt · @petersiebelt
26th Feb 2015 from TwitLonger
I am a Warchild
American Cemetery and Memorial, Margraten, Netherlands. September 14, 2002
Speech by Peter Siebelt.
I AM A WARCHILD
Today is special for me. More than 44 years ago I visited this cemetery on many weekends with my mother. We came to search for the name of my father in this white field of thousands of crosses. We believed that my father, who was an American soldier, was killed in action. Fortunately, our search ended when I received a letter a day before Christmas in 1960 from my father. He was still alive and living in Brooklyn, New York.
It took four more years, when I was eighteen years old, before I saw my father for the first time. In the meantime the Cuba-crisis in 1962 and the murder of Kennedy in 1963 had strengthened my interest in American affairs.
When I visited my father for the first time we spoke of many things: family, the world, politics, and dangers. Two items stand out in my mind about our first discussion: the coming US involvement in Vietnam and the construction of a world trade facility on the west side of lower Manhattan, New York.
VIETNAM AND LOWER MANHATTAN
At that time, the end of 1964, I had no indication that my American heritage would shape my life until today. What influenced the path I have taken?
In 1965 the American forces started to be directly involved in the fight against the communist Viet Cong and north Vietnamese in Vietnam. As a veteran, my father followed the developments very closely.
The first European demonstrations against the American involvement in Vietnam took place in Holland: I saw the demonstrations on television and in the streets of Amsterdam. The American flag was burned by radical demonstrators who carried the communist flag on their shoulders pass the American Embassy. Windows where smashed and anti-American slogans painted on the wall. These kind of demonstrations were repeated in the early 1980s against US cruise missiles. Deployments that European Governments had asked for.
I could not understand these actions. Why did they do this? My father, America, had fought to liberate this country. A small fire of disgust against the Left started to grow inside me. But I did not know then how the Left-wing was organized and what was their ultimate goal. My father tried to explain to me that most of the actions against the US had some connection with the Cold War. A fight between two big powers in which the demonstrators played a role in influencing the public opinion against the United States.
Due to this heritage my interest in the left-wing networks grew over the years until it has become my profession: An investigative reporter, publisher and international expert on the relationship between non-governmental organizations, politics and terrorist networks. For many
times I exposed their intrigues in the papers and I will continue to do so.
Three days ago, 9-11, I attended a meeting organized by the Dutch Socialist Party (SP). The SP invited a prominent speaker, a suspected member of the Marxist ETA, the Basque terrorist group. The speaker, Juan Rodriquez Martinez, was on the run for the Spanish police. The room was filled with the hardcore of radical left-wing activists. Martinez was released on bail from a Dutch jail until the court will decide about his extradition to Spain. The item of the program was that persons like him where victims of President George W. Bush’s war on terror.
When asked of his thoughts about the victims of 9-11 he responded “I don’t care about the three thousand deaths under the WTC-rubble. I care about the Talibans being killed in containers, and the death of the Kurdish PKK, or the Palestinians.” Loud applause erupted in the room.” America was the monster.
I kept my emotions inside and prepared myself to bring the fine details of this evening to the general public. Its published today, in a daily paper named the Reformatorisch Dagblad and later i one of books "Eco Nostra" http://www.bol.com/nl/p/eco-nostra/1001004001974863/.
To end this brief perspective about why I am here, I simply want to say: thanks dad, thanks, to your colleague-soldiers who rest here in peace. Thanks for the liberty you gave us. I will try to do my best and keep on defending this valuable possession.