9/11 - Tutu called it a criminal act

'Time' magazine wrote: "If you want to humble an empire it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its faith ... The Twin Towers and the Pentagon ... are the sanctuaries of money and power that our enemies may imagine define us. But that assumes our faith rests on what we can buy and build, and that has never been America's true God."

However, I think it is what a nation does and not its spiritual or Christian faith beliefs that defines it and that it is judged by. "By their (rich) fruits shall ye know them", declared the Lord and Master of a higher proportion of Americans than any other nation. Riches for the richest nation on earth is contrary to the teaching and practice of their Lord and Master, who had no permanent home but was an itinerant preacher. Riches that have come from an abundance of its own natural resources, certainly but also by decades of running the world's structures and systems for its own material and military advantage.

It is richly ironic that for the nation that is fullest with the Lord's disciples should be the most powerful economically and militarily. This is completely contrary to the life and teaching of the Man for Others, the Servant of all and who came into Jerusalem for the last time not on a war horse but, non-violently, on a donkey.

America's true God is not the God, Jesus, of the Sermon on the Mount and who told the disciple Peter to put away his sword. It is, in fact, the wealth and vast military power that enables it to show that might is right on the world stage by keeping the weak and powerless, like Jesus, well under its dictatorial thumb.

The Anglo/American/Israeli hegemony is well and truly in charge. Indeed, Israel is the regional super-power and is funded by the devout US. Yet, the Jew who was the founder of America's Christian faith rejected the Devil's offer to give him all the kingdoms of the world if only he were to bow down to him. The most devout nation on earth, with its closest allies - the UK and Israel - has warmly embraced that offer! It has fallen at the feet of the devil. It is a fallen nation. Its crimes of aggression that come out of its empire, its imperialistic nature, its colonial ways, invite a similar response from the victims of its false God of money and power. For America's victims, revenge is so, so sweet.