October 9, 2001	Tuesday	Rajab 21, 1422

LONDON: On the day the twin towers crumbled, some said that a reflex counter-attack would come within hours. It did not. In the event, fully 26 days of intensive international pressure and planning passed before the United States launched its military response to the unprovoked slaughter of thousands of people in New York and Washington on Sept 11. On Sunday night, under cover of darkness, America finally hit back, launching coordinated attacks on at least three major Afghan cities and other sites, in pursuit of what President Bush described in a broadcast to the American nation as a carefully targeted action against Osama Osama’s Al-Qaida organization and against the Taliban regime which protects them.

From the moment that the terrorists first struck nearly four weeks ago, it has been clear that a just response to that attack was likely to involve some form of military action by the United States. Now that moment has come and only a fool will not feel some fear. Tony Blair, the British prime minister, called it a moment of utmost gravity for the world. There can be little doubt that Sunday night’s attacks were the second stage of possibly the most dangerous international crisis within many people’s lifetimes, the most dangerous since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Let us pray that this one ends as peacefully as that one ultimately did.

At a time of such seriousness, it needs to be said as clearly and as unemotively as possible at the outset that the United States was entitled to launch a military response. The United States was brutally attacked on Sept 11 as it has never before been attacked in its history. Though the precise nature of the conspiracy which ended in the deaths of thousands has not yet been fully unmasked, Americans have little doubt that Osama and Al Qaida planned it or that their agents executed it under the protection of the Taliban regime, which continues to harbour them. Offered the opportunity to hand over Osama and to act against his networks, and pressured to do so even by those closest to them, including Pakistan, the Afghan regime has refused. There is no surprise, therefore, but that a monstrous injustice against the US remains unassauged. There is no question, either, but that it could happen again, possibly in an even more horrendous assault against ordinary life, involving chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons.

Those who say that the terrorists would have killed 70,000 if they could, rather than 7,000, are right. The true figure is limitless. As long as that kind of danger and scale of evil remains loose in the world, then military action can be justified not just as an act of justice, but as an act of legitimate self defence to protect nations from further attack and further casualties.

Whether this particular military action is wise is another matter. We hope, of course, that it is. That will depend above all upon whether the armed action strikes effectively at its targets. Against such an enemy, and on such terrain, there is no guarantee of that. This is not going to be a computer game conflict, providing comf