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CNN Live Event/Special

America Under Attack: Americans Abroad

Aired September 13, 2001 - 03:53   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RALITSA VASSILEVA, CNN ANCHOR: Images of horror, of devastation, of grief are effecting people around the world.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR: And for Americans living abroad it has been especially hard.

Jim Bitterman reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BITTERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Four thousand miles and an ocean away, worshippers in these distant pews were in no less shock than if they had been looking on from the streets of lower Manhattan. In this globalized world with its globalized terror, you can be an American in Paris and be just as grief stricken. Church man knew people came to grieve together and used the moment to warn against letting the wrong emotions carry the day.

REV. PIERRE WHALON, BISHOP ELECT: Yes, we need to go find these people. And we need to deal with them with justice. Not (UNINTELLIGIBLE) but because we Americans -- we dont live like that.

BITTERMAN: In the end, it was more than just a shared empathy Americans do. Those who's lives led them to Paris are often exactly the sort of people who know New York, who know Washington and fear for friends left behind. Expatrioted but still patriots. Some of whom believe their homeland has been too disengaged from world affairs.

JOE SMALLHOOVER, PARIS ATTORNEY: I really hope that it brings us out of isolation. You cannot make peace worldwide. You cannot have peoples living together if they don't communicate. And the only way to do that is to come out of isolation and work together.

BITTERMAN (on camera): The priest at the Episcopal cathedral here remembered the words of Douglas McArthur at the end of World War II, "[I]f we will not devise a more equitable system than war," the General said, "[A]rmageddon will be at our doors."

(voice-over): But the words that echoed longest after the prayer service was over were the ones that came at the very end. Words most in the church had learned from childhood. But in the now and forever less innocent world words who's meaning will never be quite the same.

Jim Bitterman, CNN, Paris. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: We leave you this hour with some of the images, the words...

VASSILEVA: The sadness and grief from people around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can only say that all of those who have lost their lives, and indeed those the related and have loved ones who have lost their lives are very much in my thoughts and prayers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I react to the families hearing the news. How their lives are never going to be the same. And I feel their pain. I saw that building collapse and I broke down in tears. I was just sobbing because this is pain. This is human suffering.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are here to lay some wreaths, some flowers and to also show our sympathy in Action so that the American people understand the Palestinians are not their enemy.

JIM RODGERS, LORD MAYOR OF BELFAST: On behalf of the citizens of Belfast, I would like to extend our deepest condolences to the people of the United States of America following the terrible atrocity.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: My hearts and sympathy is with the American people subjected to human terrorist acts which have taken the lives of thousands of innocent human beings has caused unspeakable sorrow in the hearts of all men and women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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