Folks,

Let me first offer my condolences for your loss. Loss of life always is horrible, especially when it is civilian. I have recently lived and worked in the USA for some time, and while I find the obsession with money a bit insane, that is cultural. After all, I can sound awful Old-Worldy when I hit my stride and that can be waxing too. Most US citizens I have met have been absolutely splendid people, usually willing to give you the benefit of a doubt, and a time of the day, which many of my own people are not. So on my personal scale, US Citizens rank high.

But we are obviously at a cross-roads here. As you all know, things have to constantly ... improve to get noticed, to avoid becoming routine. In the 1990s, the IRA bombings in Britain, the ETA killings in Spain and the Terrorist actions in Japan and France (typically one of the Corsican splinter fractions) only made headlines in their native country. Fairly smallscale things. A couple of dead, a grieving widow (or husband) some damanged property. Fairly routine. And now this: A minimum of 4,000 people dead and the toll likely higher. In a city, that even for us had the stripings of being untouchable... it is not going to end here, you know. What do you want to loose next time?

If we assume that Bin Laden is behind this, he will probably die fairly soon. That is one down. Will that stop terror against you, do you think? How long before the first A-bomb takes out a major US city? Sure, you strengthen your counter-intelligence. Bomb Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq back to the stone age. Help the Israelis push the last Palestinian into the Mediterranean. It provides good target practice and should give you a fair assurance of all major centers of known terrorism being flattened. 10 years down the road, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty falls due to miniature a-bombs being placed nicely by terrorist agents been dormant in the US for 10 years and wholly respectable. Hollywood gone as well just so that LA should not feel safe.

As long as the cause for terrorism is not gone, it will persist. Unless you put all your formiddable talents to solving the _roots_ of the evil (and borrow whatever you need from the rest of us), it will get worse. Has the death sentence meant that no criminal in the US wish to risk it? It probably scares off a lot, but ... Death Row still has occupants, right? Same thing with Terrorism, unless I miss my guess. What to do?

I don't know. I just hope you can pull if off and still be you - remain the land of the free and the home of the brave. If possible.

One last thing: About Clara Barton - she did not found the Red Cross, only the American Red Cross. The International Red Cross was created by a Swiss business man, Henry Dunant in 1863, after he had been a witness to one of the (then) bloodiest battles by Solferino in Italy. Clara Barton, a U.S. nurse, came to Europe around 1869, where she learned about the Red Cross. When Barton returned to the United States in 1873, she began her crusade for the American Red Cross, which was founded in 1881, and Barton served as its first president.

She was a truly remarkable woman, would be even today, but she is 'only' the founder of the American Red Cross. But it was she who got it to be active in peacetime as well as in wartime, and that is quite an achievement :)

Best Wishes,

Dix