Thanks, Amos, for typing out that piece from the Iran Daily link. I think we'd find out that, even in the places where there is, for all kind of reasons, hatred against the US government, there is going to be real compassion felt for the victims, as the real stories and picture come through.

People lack imagination sometimes. The sight of children and adults rejoicing at news of the hi-jack bombing (or whatever we end up calling it) was horrible. But if we imagine that the retaliation something equivalent happens to some Middle Eastern community, I predict there will be some people in our countries whose initial reaction will be exactly like that, as there undoubtedly were at the news of events like Hiroshima. What else is implied when we see handwritten posters saying "Nuke 'em President."

Initial reeaction I said. When the true picture comes most of the same people are going to feel different. Some of them would be queing up to give blood.

As powerless individuals we have the luxury of being able to sound off at random. We can call for things to be done that would involve the deaths of countless numbers of innocent people. It would be so very very easy for the people in charge to do things that would outweigh the horrors of the Twin Towers a thousand times over.

And there are people calling on them to do exactly that -"Nuke 'em President", "make a crater of their country." Most people when they say that kind of thing are just letting go with the expressive rhetoric. They mean it in a sort of abstract way, with their imagination suspended -a bit like people cheering in the streets at the news of something awful happening to their "enemies".

There are some people who actually mean that kind of thing, and would be willing to carry it into action - essentially the kind of people who actually did the hi-jacking.

We just have to hope that the people who make the decisions have the imagination that the first set of people lack, and the humanity that the second sort of people have managed to suppress.

That's an extraordinary poem by Wislawa Szymborska, thanks for giving it Charley Noble. Makes me wish I could read Polish.