An important difference between the recent situation in London and Sept.11th were victims and a lack off. Michael O’leary can ask for all security restrictions to be removed so soon because there are no dead bodies or grieving familes for him to have on his conscience.

and yes, diane, i agree, any american comparing september 11th to the holocaust is completely offensive. unfortunately, so are most americans, even to some of their own. i need to get out of here.

To refute one or two inaccuracies, I never claimed or implied that you did not mourn your dead, but using a metaphor to represent a country does tend to generalise its reaction somewhat. I also do not compare 2 subway bombings, a blown up bus, and a foiled terrorist attack on Heathrow, to events at the WTC. They are not comparable. I have never claimed my country, or my country of habitation, to be brave peaceful or smart. Brave and unafraid are not equivalent.

You make a very valid point when you say NYC has never been bombed and therefore never had the chance to prove its capabilities. But the other aspect of that argument is that it has never been bombed, so the first time, serious as it is, is still a first time after years of safety, it is still the only harm the city has ever suffered in this fashion. The numbers killed and affected were huge, but do you really think they compare with the historical death tolls for terrorism in Belfast, Dublin, London? Or indeed most European cities?

You tell me I grossly underrate the WTC attacks and overrated a few measly bombs in the tube. Fair enough. I have to admit that this is somewhat retaliatory. Three years ago I took a tour of Auswich, which was a truly sobering and horrifying experience. Or at least it would have been if we had not had to listen to the New Yorker family in our group constantly compare September 11 to the Holocaust, and find them equivalent. This was of course the voice-over to their home video as they took the tour, which culminated is a loud phone call when everyone else was witnessing a moment of silence for the millions who had died on that ground.

In summary, yes, it is a shock to be hit where you live, and the US has been incredibly lucky to avoid that up until now. My family are from Northern Ireland, my parents grew up in one of the worst areas. I’ve seen cars burn upside down in the middle of the street, I’ve seen the aftermath of bombings a block wide, I’ve seen lorries overturned and set on fire so they could be used as road blocks, I’ve been stuck between two of those lorries while men in masks wandered around with guns. I’ve seen submachine guns pointed at my father multiple times.

America suffered a huge blow. But no more than other nations have been suffering for years. Does that make it ok? Absolutely not. Did they somehow deserve such a thing to happen? Absolutely not. Did they overreact? Yes. Are they arrogant, obnoxious, and completely up their own asses about their country in general? Frequently.

Feel free to compare my intellect to any food item that comes to mind, thankfully I am not someone who requires friendly advice. I write about anything I wish. I concede that in this case, much of it was inaccurate and spur-of-the-moment ranting. I have never claimed to do otherwise, and I will not apologise for it. By all means though, do not read things that you do not like.

you know, at first, i wasn’t going to even dignify this with a response. but let me speak my crying little disordered mind.

i’m a new yorker. not new york city, but new york state. someone i went to school with, a basoon player, died when the subway station collapsed underneath the WTC. since then, i’ve moved to DC, and i’ve met a really cool guy who had to retire from the army because was one of the few people in the pentagon at the time the second plane hit. he had 3rd degree burns on over 80 percent of his body. the person he was standing next to was only ever half recovered.

did we handle the aftermath badly? yes. is this continued occupation of iraq and afghanistan a foolhardy venture that will collapse as soon as we leave, and be worse than it was before? its likely. but let me tell you this: we sure as hell didn’t run and cry anywhere. in fact, as i remember it, we were criticized for an exaggerated response too soon to know the facts. new yorkers have rallied and the city is now stronger in community and the city has a renewed sense of strength since this happened. they figure if this happened there, and they survived, then they can do anything. it has taken a while to get there, but in my recent visit last month, there was no one running around screaming or crying about the end of the world.

“London has a different attitude to these things than many other cities. I suppose the best example recently of a city shitting itself in terror was NY after the World Trade Centre attacks. Not that those attacks weren’t serious, they involved huge loss of life, but the blow to the american ego and sense of self-righteous and safe superiority was much more severe than the blow to the headcount.”

Excuse me? ok, you’re comparing a subway bombing and a foiled terrorist attack to three highjacked and crashed planes, two huge holes in the NY landscape that resulted in over 3000 deaths, and a side being taken off the pentagon- one of the US’ foremost symbols of security and defense. also take into account that there has been NO war fought on US soil since the civil war. no one before had ever hit us, literally, where we lived. and you seem to have conveniently forgotten that there were other planes besides the 2 that hit the WTC. had one plane not been taken over by the passengers, either the capitol building or the white house would also have been razed to the ground. this had something to do with damaging the national ego,of course (which i concede is massive), but it had more to do with morale and the loss of that feeling of safety. think of the first time you personally experience death, and recognized your own mortality. the attacks on American soil were a death of a feeling of separateness, of exemption from the devastation of war. how you can dare imply in your smugness that we didn’t mourn those lost…well, i guess arrogance is an excellent veneer for insecurity.

“London has been bombed multiple times, for years on end. It has been a centre of violence, intrigue and conspiracy, has survived angry mobs, the great fire of 1666, and the black plague, amongst other disasters.”

people can still remember being attacked in London and remember rebuilding. this does a lot to reassure present generations that it is possible to come back from that kind of devastation. people in london, and many other countries for that matter, know from experience that cities can keep moving forward, and it gets easier with time. NY had no such experience to draw from, and that puts a big dent in recovery turn around.

‘Perhaps I grossly generalise. I was not in NY then. I have never been there. All I have to go by is news and the speeches made by idiotic politicians. ”

it is hard to speak of what you do not know. most people i live with in DC don’t go around whimpering in terror. most people, in fact, are channeling fear into anger, which i think is just as dangerous. as dangerous, say, as the israelis randomly bombing residential areas that terrorists have already vacated. people want to punish. people want to know that they’re hitting the ones who hit them. but unfortunately, that is why the war on terror will always be lost, because now its not about places and countries…its about little splinter cells and nomadic radicals and children with explosives strapped to their backs.

are americans afraid of that? yes, and from recent events, i think they have every right to be. we are an abnoxious nation, always getting in the middle of things that don’t concern us, and that attracts a lot of negative attention. but then again, no one seems to mind that so much when it benefits their country.

in summation: i am pissed. you tried to sum up the national feeling on a complex subject in a place you don’t live and have never visited, dismissing it casually and, in my opinion, rudely. i am not a nationalistic person…i don’t even own an american flag, i don’t think. but congratulations, you really got my back up. the next time somebody runs planes into your cities and kills thousands of people, you can brag about brave, peaceful, and smart you are.

till then, my most friendly advice would be to write about something you know, or shut up. my least friendly advice would contain a torrent of expletives and less than favorable comparisons of your intellect to that of various fruits, vegetables, and single-celled organisms.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself?