A Different War

No words can possibly reflect the horror of Tuesday’s mass murder of men, women and children – ordinary airline passengers and workers in commercial and government offices – by terrorists using hijacked planes to blow up the World Trade Centre in New York and a part of the Pentagon complex in Washington. Nor the psychopathic inhumanity of those who over weeks and months went about cold-bloodedly planning and executing this crime against all humankind. What has sent shock waves round the world, even more than the actual human and physical devastation, terrible as it has been, is the realisation how vulnerable even a country as powerful and as well defended against external attacks as the US is to the sort of invisible enemy who struck on Tuesday. And the next time round the enemy might choose to arm himself with chemical or biological weapons or even a crude nuclear device.