Jonathan Coupe said: "But the US will make every reasonable effort to spare civilian lives, while mounting an effective counter-attack"
I'm puzzled by this staement, because there is no evidence for it. The US has a shameful record of not giving a shit for civilian life when it decides a country is its enemy, From Vietnam to Iraq to Serbia and Kosova and others, it has opted for blanket bombing tactics. In Iraq alone, it is estimated the US killed about 100,000 civilians, backed shamefully by the British government. The fear of the rest of the world today is that the US may respond similiarly and respond to a disgraceful and terrible terrorist act by doing something equivalent or worse. It is one thing some individual maniac terrorists committing this type of act, it is another thing for a state to do it, and the US has done this in the past. I really hope they won't do it again. If they do, more innocent people will lose their lives. The answer to indiscriminate murder is not indiscriminate murder.
-- cheers Steve Rogerson http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/steve.rogerson
Redemption 03, 21-23 February 2003, Ashford, Kent Celebrating 25 years of Blake's 7 and 10 years of Babylon 5 http://www.smof.com/redemption