The events of September 11, 2001 in the United States of America will, from now on, no doubt inform our thinking and planning. Those of us who are over a certain age would have suddenly become more aware of our own mortality. Those who believe in destiny will ponder theirs.

The world watched horrified, nearly three weeks ago, as three commercial planes were deliberately flown into US landmarks, obliterating almost 7,000 people. Now the world waits with baited breath, as the US and its allies amass forces near Afghanistan, to see or hear the first bullet fired. The consensus seems to be that America is going to war and taking the rest of the world along with it, but is war the answer? Is war what people really want? Is the move to strike back really in revenge for lives lost, or is it to soothe bruised egos?

While the atrocities were committed on American soil, many other countries in the world lost citizens in the terrorist attacks. How many of these countries have called for the blood of the perpetrators?

Some Americans seem to want the issue settled by peaceful means. Teenagers on a morning television show last week expressed this view. It was repeated this week by a group of women on 'Oprah'. Perhaps the American leadership should ask the people again, now that they have had time to absorb the magnitude of what is likely to take place, if war is what they really want.

It was only three days after the attacks, when passions ran high, that the US House of Representatives voted 420 to one to authorize the president to commit American armed forces into combat. The representative from Washington District of Columbia, Eleanor Holmes Norton did not vote. Her lack of a voice at such a crucial time was surprising because the area she represents was directly affected. This was bitingly criticised by the Washington Post in an editorial.

But how many of the members of Congress could have said truthfully on September 14 that they spoke for all their constituents in that vote? How many would have abstained/voted nay were the vote taken today?

If the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have left the US and other world economies reeling, imagine what a full-fledged war would do. It would cost billions of dollars and the loss of life could well make the current tragedy forgettable.

American writer Barbara Tuchman once said: "War is the unfolding of miscalculations." America and its allies must ensure that they do not underestimate global sympathy for Osama bin Laden and his ilk, nor stir further hatred against themselves by punishing the innocent along with the guilty.

Between 1956 and 1960, Pete Seeger wrote the now well-known song "Where have all the Flowers gone?" The words of the song explain that the flowers have gone because girls picked them, then the girls took young men for husbands, the young men donned uniforms and became soldiers and the soldiers ended up in graveyards where the flowers bloomed again.

And finally it asks the question that will perhaps never be answered: "When will they ever learn?"