All the News of the World

The international press reacts to the death and destruction caused by terrorists in the United States. Buildings collapsed. Democracy stands

The New York Times

As distinctive as the World Trade Center was in its dominance over the city, it was also a profoundly ordinary place. This we learned for the first time when it was bombed in 1993 and out of its stairwells and exits came our friends and neighbors, smudged and grimacing. It was also, as now appears too plainly, shockingly naked against the sky, its only real defense the happy confidence that there were some things that no human being would want to do, and others that none could possibly carry off. It is important to consider the intensity of the hatred it took to bring this mission off. It is a hatred that exceeds the conventions of warfare, that knows no limits, abides by no agreements.

The New York Post

Tales of heroism will emerge from yesterday's events. Many will involve individuals who were prisoners of circumstance. Not so the men and women of New York's emergency services: heroism – placing oneself at risk when alternatives exist – is integral to their proud traditions. This is what they do. This is what New York has come to expect, and never is New York disappointed.

New York Daily News

America was tested yesterday, as President Bush said. Our values, our commitments, our will and, yes, our strength and determination. Yesterday, our vulnerabilities were stripped bare before a world that both hungers for, and resents, our freedoms. But as the power-mad engineers of this catastrophe rub their hands and cackle at their bloody handiwork, let them be sure of one thing: there is no nation stronger than the United States of America. Our resolve runs very, very deep

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

How did the CIA, FBI and other intelligence-gathering organizations not have timely wind of this extensive, relatively sophisticated attack? Note, for example, that the aircraft that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon – and the one that crashed in Somerset County – were fully fueled for cross-country flights to California. That hardly was a coincidence; on the contrary, it suggests careful planning. It will, of course, be a measure of George W Bush's leadership skills to deal with this crisis and its aftermath. So far Mr Bush is sending the right message and setting the right tone. Last night he pointedly promised retaliation against not only "those behind these evil acts" but also any country that harbors the terrorists. However, the President also left the impression that certainty identifying those responsible is more important than rushing to respond.

The Oklahoma Times

Freedom must be vigorously defended if the country is to feel safe again. This will be done, first, by acknowledging that as of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States was at war, most likely with a band of global terrorists and the small collection of states known to tolerate their activities.

The Dallas News

The murky new world of international terrorism will require Americans to exercise patience until the United States and its allies can deliver the appropriate response. We must become as sly as serpents. While we have historically used frontal assaults, we may have to use stealth until we can strike. And, as former Deputy Defense Secretary Lawrence Korb asked, is the CIA still obsessively studying the former Soviet Union when it should be developing better sources in the Middle East?

The Boston Globe

It might take a long time for investigators to be certain who was ultimately behind yesterday's attack. But the sad truth is that there have been too many bombings of American targets in the last few years that either went unpunished or unresolved. In 1995 and 1996, bombs in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and at the El Khobar US army base in Saudi Arabia killed 24 American servicemen. In 1998, US embassies were blown up in Kenya and Tanzania. In October of last year, 17 American sailors lost their lives when their ship was struck by an explosives-laden raft in the harbor of Aden, Yemen. But even as the United States mobilizes its resources against terrorism, Americans also need to safeguard the liberties that distinguish this society from repressive regimes. Air travel is a special freedom that originated in the United States and binds the country together. The terrorists struck with cruel ingenuity at one of the most important institutions in American life. The FAA had to shut down airports yesterday, but air service must be restored as soon as possible, as should rail and bus service to New York. Terrorists have scored a double victory if they succeed in isolating the largest city in the country and immobilizing the rest. With its police force preoccupied with the World Trade Center catastrophe, New York had no choice but to call off its municipal voting yesterday, but it was heartening here that Acting Governor Jane Swift and Attorney General Thomas Reilly insisted that voting continue in the 9th Congressional District. Free elections are an affirmation that democracy endures through war and terror. Now the hum of newscaster voices fills every space, and no one wants to return to regularly scheduled programming. Will we ever? Will the rumble of a plane overhead ever sound as mundane as it did last week? Can we ever feel as free as we've always believed ourselves to be?

The Washington Post

The "sleeping giant" feared by Pearl Harbor, has been awakened. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, will not be forgotten. And those responsible will be made to pay.

Chicago Tribune

During World War II the rationing of gasoline, rubber and sugar wasn't solely to help the war effort. The ethos of the day demanded that America do more than send its soldiers and hardware to war and support them with needed commodities. The companion motive for rationing goods, often overlooked in today's retellings, was to steel this nation's spine against further vulnerabilities it couldn't foresee. What gets sacrificed this time isn't yet clear. Perhaps it will be the naive but common assumption that we live in a world bounded by two oceans and our own, often selfish concerns. Perhaps it will be the Balkanization of Americans into groups that have had the luxury of pursuing their own agendas for lack of an overarching American agenda. But by wreaking their terrible havoc, Tuesday's terrorist perpetrators have awakened something within millions of Americans.

LA Times

Buildings collapsed. Democracy stands. Up until now America has been fortunate. Foreign enemies have, until now, caused little loss of life on our mainland. The bloodshed of the War for Independence paved the way for the establishment of a new nation. The traumatic mayhem of the Civil War was self-inflicted. One of the hallmarks of World War II was that, with the exception of the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States did not live through the bitter experience of the warring European nations. For the United States, battles happened somewhere else.

Omaha World Herald

Some people compared the attacks with the Japanese ambush of Pearl Harbor. However, the toll was potentially greater than the 2,400 lives lost in that 1941 attack. Fifty thousand people worked in the World Trade Center towers. If the hijack-terrorists had achieved a maximum kill, it would have been near the magnitude of the 60,000 people who died at Hiroshima. Tuesday, as the hours passed and shock turned to anger, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf said what a lot of people were thinking – the first impulse, he noted, is to find the persons responsible and punish them severely. But as Schwarzkopf acknowledged, part of the frustration of a terrorist war is not knowing the adversary, immediately or at all. We can only trust that the government will do its best to take care of that essential part of the response. These events should remind Americans of the importance of electing the best leaders they possibly can – the most important consideration is not the benefits the candidate promises but the character and wisdom he can bring to an unforeseen crisis.

Rocky Mountain News

We can't do nothing, of course. but if you remember our cruise-missile attacks after the bombings of our embassies in Africa, you have to wonder how we can possibly do enough. You can declare a war on terrorism, but you still have to figure out where and how to bring the fight. I'm pondering this when I get an e-mail from my friend Mark in Los Angeles. "Last time I felt this way was when JFK was shot. From now on, we're going to measure time as pre-NY and post-NY. Or am I overreacting?" (Mike Littwinn)

UNITED KINGDOM

The Financial

Times

Americans prize their freedom. That includes freedom from duress as much as the freedom to choose. On Tuesday, those cherished freedoms shrank. In the coming days, there will therefore be a temptation to strike back at the enemy with full force. As commander-in-chief, Mr Bush should first pause. He should establish the facts, acting with allies around the world. He should consider the timing and targets. He should also recognise that Tuesday's outrages were a calculated effort to force America to withdraw from the world. This must not happen. The US now needs international support and the world needs US engagement. There must be no retreat behind a Fortress America.

The Belfast Telegraph

All of us, wherever we live, be it in new york or northern ireland, must come to grips with the terms under which what is really World War Three are being fought. As experience of the troubles in Northern Ireland has shown, it is impossible to provide total protection against terrorists and yet keep normal society functioning. Their movements can be monitored and their activities checked but – as the IRA said after Brighton – they only need to be lucky once.

The Scotsman

This morning there is a question-mark over much we have taken for granted. Will the onward march of economic and cultural globalisation, which depends utterly on the free movement of people, cash and information, be halted in its tracks by a new, restrictive international security regime? And what will that mean for ourselves, so utterly dependent on exporting and foreign investment? Now is the test for both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to use their close links with America to act as a force for calm, for constructive thinking and for ensuring a collective Western front in the face of terrorism to ensure America is thinking about next year as well as next week.

The Daily Telegraph

This was, in many ways, the most vicious blow aimed at the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Though the victims yesterday were Americans, the chief target was what the perpetrators would call international Jewry. New York is not only the richest city on earth, the capital of capitalism; it is also the largest Jewish city. Last week the grotesque "anti-racism" conference in Durban reiterated the equation between Zionism and racism which, inverted, means that anti-Zionism translates into anti-Semitism. The refusal by the US and Israel to accept this equation helped to create the context in which yesterday's monstrosity could be condoned, or at least relativised, by many Muslim fundamentalists. Does Western civilisation have the moral courage and determination to defend itself against barbarians who have armed themselves with the West's own weapons? (Daniel Johnson)

The Times

The wise general always keeps in mind his enemy's objective. As with other recent attacks on Americans at home and abroad, the objective cannot be the traditional one of those who wage war. It is not to defeat America, to undermine its economic power or military strength, nor even to damage its political stability. Such goals are unachievable. That is why comparisons with Pearl Harbor are silly. The objective is to publicise a cause, humiliate America and goad her into a violent response. To react by abandoning the customary self-control of democracy is to help the terrorist to do his work. (Simon Jenkins)

The Sun

The attack on america is an attack on us all. but the spirit of america will never be destroyed by faceless cowards, as President Bush pledged so movingly last night. In George W Bush, America has a strong and statesmanlike leader who will not shirk from using might in the cause of right. The potential destruction terrorists could wreak on the world's capital cities is the reason they must be hunted down and destroyed before it is too late. The West is not at war. It is engaged in the biggest criminal investigation in human history.

MIDDLE EAST

The Jerusalem Post

Israel

Even we israelis, who have been battling a wave of terrorism for almost a year, have trouble fathoming what has befallen tens of thousands of innocent people in America. We are sickened, once again, by scenes of Palestinians dancing in the streets, this time celebrating the deaths of Americans. We have trouble fathoming the hatred directed at us, so we can only imagine the bafflement and pain of Americans. Some Americans, like some Israelis, may be tempted to think about what they have done wrong, what they might have done to cause people to take so many lives along with their own. The answer is that America has been attacked not for what it has done wrong, but for what it has done right, and for being the hope of the world. If democracies do not unite to defend themselves, our world will become as tragically unrecognizable as the New York skyline.

The Jordan Times

Jordanians stand hand-in-hand with all peace-loving peoples around the world in condemning terrorism and grieving the huge loss of innocent lives in yesterday's attacks in Washington and New York. Even at the most trying time of deepest frustration – and the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have plunged Arab masses into deep frustration indeed – Jordanian and Arab governments and peoples have always upheld the principle that violence only breeds violence. And they have rejected terrorism as a vile, brutal deformity of human nature. Whenever terrorism wins, everyone loses, human and religious values crumble, the very foundations of human civilisations and societies are shaken and the universal principles of mankind are violated. A mature and strong nation, America will surely find in itself the strength to heal these terrible wounds, perhaps the worst sustained in its history. American leaders might also pause and use this time of national grief to do some soul-searching that could help their country become even stronger and stand more steadfast in the face of adversities. Anti-American feelings are growing because of the new US-led world order after the collapse of Soviet power. Denying rising anti-Americanism would not serve any purpose. US decision-makers should evaluate whether they have steered the world's only superpower to dominate under the insignia of justice and international legitimacy, or succumbed to short-term interests and the power of arrogance.

Palestine Chronicle

It should need not be said, but i will say it: the acts of terrorism that killed civilians in new York and Washington were reprehensible and indefensible. But this act was no more despicable as the massive acts of terrorism – the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes – that the American government has committed during my lifetime. For more than five decades throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to understand it except as terrorism. If that statement seems outrageous, just ask the people of Vietnam. (Robert Jensen)

THE REST OF THE WORLD

The Times of India

While it would be only too easy, and perhaps inevitable, to blame terrorist groups inspired by so-called 'islamic fundamentalism', it should also be borne in mind that with overweaning power comes an equally formidable range of enmity. It would not be entirely in the realm of thriller fiction – though in fact, one of Tom Clancy's bestsellers does mention the US President being killed after a plane crashes into the White House – if these attacks did not have clandestine drug connections, besides the obvious political and terrorist angles. The US today is the largest recipient of mainly cocaine, but also heroin, from diverse areas.

The Russia Journal

Though the edifice of world trade centre, symbol of american prosperity, has fallen, the united states will stand. no catastrophe forged by man can fell that great nation, a nation of ideas and of liberty built on the hopes of generations of freedom-seekers. But liberty must always be guarded, and the American people have paid dearly for that freedom and the carelessness of their government. All those who value their freedom or strive to achieve it must stand with America today. Just as Russians and Americans embraced across the River Elbe in victory over fascism, so will millions reach out to each other to overcome this evil.

Le Monde France

At this tragic time, when words seem inadequate to say what we feel, the first thing that comes to mind is this: Just as surely as John Kennedy declared himself a Berliner when he stood in Berlin in 1963, we are all Americans, we are all New Yorkers. At one of the most serious junctures in our history, how can we not feel deep solidarity with this people and this country, with the United States, a country we are so close to and to which we owe our liberty.

The Globe and Mail

Canada

While strong action is required to track down and punish these terrorists, we offer no support for a holy war of blind retribution. The first instinct of a new and inexperienced president may be to strike back hard against nations suspected of involvement, and such instinct may well be supported by the nation's military leaders. It will also undoubtedly be supported by the public at large. Most Americans are calling for retaliation, and the tradition has been to launch attacks on nations believed to harbour terrorists. But despite the pressure, we believe it would be overly hasty and even risky to drop random bombs on suspect nations. The US should not be drawn into a cycle of attack that will either target civilians or imperil them by proximity. This would be as indefensible as the original act. Yesterday was the United Nation's International Day of Peace, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement that it should be "a day on which we try to imagine a world quite different from the one we know." Sadly, this was not what Mr Annan intended. Yesterday, we learned the world is different – scarier and more evil.