Alright, you fans and friends are aware of my policy to defer comments on certain issues (1) when they are very current and, perhaps, I feel out of my depth and (2) when I hear, see and read more expert comment and analysis by knowledgeable writers and learned analysts. Incidentally, that's why I urge those interested to attend a symposium organised by a department of our University, scheduled for today. Dr. Kirton and colleagues' theme is "An American tragedy". Now those are knowledgeable folks.

But since one friend influenced me to fashion something on the Terrorist Attacks on the USA of Tuesday, September 11 last, I hereby succumb. Simply, I record in summary style, my views on what those bin Laden terrorists really did two Tuesdays ago.

To America.....

The cowardly, murderous attacks, especially on the civilians of New York, have ushered in foreign terrorism long promised, to the heart, soul and soil of the USA. What routinely happens in places like Tel Aviv, Bethlehem, Haifa, Paris, Madrid or Kashmir, happened with megaforce savagery in Manhattan. That terrorism has now awakened the American leadership and populace to the fact that: clandestine and perfected forms of warfare - suicide bombings, hijackings, chemical attacks and assassinations - are upon them.

Under a President, put there by the American Supreme Court; who has points to prove and who promised during his debates with Al Gore, to transform his Army's capabilities; who can learn from his father's glory and mistakes in Iraq and the Persian Gulf; and who has the full support of his military establishment, America will now change its rules of engagement drastically, to prosecute a protracted war in a manner that terrorists do.

Ordinary Americans are also now seized with a better understanding of the tactics and objectives of the bin Laden terrorist cells worldwide. The WTC carnage has made America adopt a "friend-or-foe" policy in its foreign relations, which means nations - from Pakistan to Uzbekistan, from Jordan to Venezuela and even impoverished Guyana - must declare and act clearly to state their positions on causes and terrorism, and their attitudes to the USA, from here onwards.

The barbarians have caused America to rally together as never before - politically and ideologically, perhaps ushering a new political culture in the superpower. To their dubious credit, they have disrupted the American economy and briefly the country's cultural life. Airline jobs will contract; ripple effects will be terrible in the short and medium term and all this will redound to the tragedy of other nations depending on a robust, vibrant US economy. But when I heard President Bush talk "war" in the Cathedral last Friday and when I saw the durable Dan Rather break down in tears twice this Monday evening; and when I heard an American soldier commit completely to go into overt and covert warfare, I sense that the terrorists, wherever they are, will get doses of their own medicine. Unfortunately, the response to this new war will never end!

To the world...

The Bin Laden terrorists would know that the strike at the heart of Western civilisation has mobilised and galvanised the world - including Africa, Europe and even certain conventional Islamic States - into a state of "get-readiness" and rejection of terrorism.

The freedoms of Western societies will now have to be diluted a bit, in that liberties at airports and sensitive institutions, practices accustomed to, will have to be curtailed in the name of safety and long-term security. (The American establishment has already told its intrusive, free-wheeling media that it won't have ready access to strategic military plans and the immigration authorities will instantly change attitudes towards certain immigrants.)

On the positive side, after the savagery of September 11, more States will co-operate on such issues as money laundering, intelligence information on terrorist activity in respective countries and new legislation and treaties to support the foregoing. It is to be hoped that the Western Hemisphere especially will appreciate that not all Muslims; not all of Islam are terrorists and that Earlier Foreign Policy can create monsters because of the expediencies of one era.

To Guyanese...

The tiny under-developed societies of the Caribbean and Guyana can hardly be that significant to the USA economically and militarily. However, we can harbour terrorists or their sponsors and we can provide gateways or routes for certain American movements or transportation across the Atlantic. Our little lands can still offer some value.

On the more practical level though, the terrorists' American carnage is threatening to cripple the Caribbean's airline, hotel and tourism industries generally. Jamaica and the Bahamas are hurting already. One can project the harsh realities.

Back in the States, it is quite likely that the Bush Administration's policies on immigration and immigrants will mean that all immigrants - including Guyanese - must be properly documented, so that their status won't be suspect when approached. We in Guyana don't want to go to America to bomb or burn. We want to build. But what will be the attitudes to the issuance of visas in Kingston? We are a friendly nation to the US but will they need more immigrants in that economy?

Which God was that?

Last week in New York outside the Big Cathedral a New Yorker was asking for a sign by God to indicate that he still exists even as that urban international catastrophe was allowed to happen. Later, many Christian pastors and counsellors taught what I've been advised by my own Christian activist friends here. That: God's love is stronger than the power of evil. It was not God who influenced or allowed that act. Of course, I still wonder, which God was around last week Tuesday? The one who wants to show us what we become when the devil takes over? But if so, why did he allow so many of his very own to suffer even as they followed him?

I'm told too that love is always stronger than hate and that good Muslims believe that too. Can I be convinced? Perhaps when I heard one New Yorker tell her doubtful friend that "God is not the cause of that death and destruction; rather God is those thousands in this line and all over America waiting to search and rescue and feed and give blood and shelter. That's God!"

Well, I still need your assistance. For I sense the Devil very much around. In all of us? And in terrorists' bombings and earthquakes and hurricanes!

Until....

1) Postponed again: Thoughts on Brazil, Dr. Walter's pessimism and Gandhi's failures.

2) Really Swami, your type of response to my piece on a (possibly) racist Gandhi was expected - and respected. I'll never perpetuate any debate to sully's the Mahatma's overall stature. Who am I? But next week we must explore his short-comings.

3) Guess what? CN "Justice" Sharma will begin sending certain needy poor who go to his headquarters to Congress Place! Ha!