I have twice been close to terrorist explosions in London, Bishopsgate and the Baltic Exchange. In the latter, a young girl was killed, sitting in a car, waiting for her father. Who now remembers her?

The perpetrators, if they were ever caught, and I don't remember that they were, would by now have been released as part of the Northern Ireland "Peace Process".

One death as opposed to three thousand. Will Bush and his hawks release any of the "terrorists" in Guantanamo Bay that they finally get around to convicting, or will Texas bloodlust consign them to a lethal injection or the electric chair?

11th September, 2001 (there, I've written it correctly for once!) emphasised the vulnerability of city dwellers the world over, as Manitas points out above.

My daughter works in Canary Wharf, and my office will be in the shadow of a new tower planned near London Bridge. Tempting targets both.

No, ClintonHammond, there are some things that will never be the same again, and the sight or sound of a low-flying aircraft will inspire paranoid feelings if not for ever, certainly for a good long time.

911 is a call for help in the US. 9/11 should have been a call for action.

Action to remedy at least some of the grievances that inspire terrorism. Action to cease the construction of ego-flattering buildings with the potential for fires that no firefighting force yet created could hope to extinguish and from which escape for thousands could prove impossible.

What do we get? Sabre-rattling at the "Axis of Evil". After Iraq, will Bush and Blair next invade North Korea? Or Libya? Or Cuba? Or Iran? How about Zimbabwe? Oh, and then there is Sudan....

"'Til every city the whole world round becomes just another American town. How peaceful it will be, we'll set everybody free... They all hate us anyhow, so let's drop the big one now!" "Political Science" - Randy Newman

O tempora, o mores!

Oh, and yes, I do think that the anniversary coverage was overdone, with the possible exception of the superb documentary about the NY firemen shot by the two French brothers. "The Bravest" indeed.

Alan