NO one could possibly remain unmoved by the recent appalling loss of innocent lives in America. But this latest world disaster must surely send some sort of message to the American Government.

After all the carefully orchestrated hype about an attack on democracy, an attack on the free world and an attack on a blameless country, the bottom line must surely read: the Empire strikes back.

For longer than most people can remember, successive American governments have unleashed a litany of atrocities world-wide with absolute impunity. First the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then the virtual destruction of Korea and Vietnam, and bombing Cambodia into the Stone Age. In more recent times, America has supported the Zionist destruction of Palestine and all but wiped out Iraq and Yugoslavia, the latter a country which posed no threat to anyone. Nearer home, many countries, with the exception of Cuba, have been completely destabilised.

All this and so much more, with an unbelievable loss of life. This time it is the American people themselves who have been made hostage to American terror and imperialism.

But now, is it not time for our own government to distance itself from "Uncle Sam" and bring this one-way "special relationship" to an end. Further support for this pariah state will only put the people of this country at considerable risk.

Tony Blair, emerging from No.10, dressed like his mentor George Bush in open-neck shirt and black bomber jacket and telling us we are "at war", would seem to suggest that this is highly unlikely.

Robert Fisk, writing in the Independent, puts it quite bluntly: "We are not," he says, "being asked to fight a war on terror. We are being asked to fight America's enemies".

GEORGE ABENDSTERN