Had a great deal of letters regarding September 11th too, unsurprisingly. We were on holiday in Tenerife when it happened, guess it’s one of those things like the Kennedy assassination, everyone is gonna remember exactly where they were when they heard the news. My first thought was condolences to our many friends on the other side of the pond, as well as sympathy for the American people in general. While the former is still heartfelt, the latter has become somewhat harder to maintain. I was hopeful at first, thought the American government showed great restraint. But I figured it was only a matter of time, particularly thinking back to Pearl Harbour and the consequent nuking of Hiroshima. Cynical? I don’t mean to be.

Although I wasn’t expecting them to do anything quite so drastic this time around, the eventual response still smacked of somebody hitting out in blind vengeance, pretty much as expected. An eye for an eye? Worse, make that one entire nation per tower. Afghanistan, Iraq, that takes care of the World Trade Centre… so who pays for the Pentagon? There must be some very nervous people in Iran and Syria right now. But not North Korea, no danger of them being attacked, they could defend themselves, perish the thought. And there are nervous people here too, all over the world, in fact. Bush scares me and many other “sane” people. He’s the President of the most powerful nation on Earth, yet appears to have all the intelligence of a bag of marshmallows. Oh, my most sincere apologies to marshmallows for the insult. George W. Bush; hmmmn, I have a feeling I've figured out what the “W” stands for.

We need to be honest with ourselves here, the Arab world has good cause to resent and distrust the west. Historically, we are the bad guys. The state of Israel was built with duplicity, brutality and terror. More importantly, it was largely financed by the U.S., without whose support it would not have survived. Yet America remains mystified as to why the Iraqis don’t want a McDonalds in Baghdad. As for Israel… what can I say? How can a race that suffered the persecution and near-genocidal injustice of the Holocaust, wilfully inflict such treatment on others. The Israelis, of course, have an inalienable right to their own nation, but so do the Palestinians, whose ancient claim to that land is equally valid. The militarily strong nations would be wise to remember, that with power, goes responsibility.