If the September 11 terror attack is supposed to constitute a caesura in world history, it must be able to stand comparison to other events of world historical impact.

From a moral point of view, there is no excuse for terrorist acts, regardless of the motive or the situation under which they are carried out.

Partisans fight on familiar territory with professed political objectives to conquer power. This is what distinguishes them from terrorists

Instead of the international police action we had hoped for during the war in Kosovo, there are wars again - conducted with state-of-the-art technology, but still in the old style

Perhaps September 11 could be called the first historic world event in the strictest sense: the impact, the explosion, the slow collapse - a gruesome reality literally took place in front of a global public.

I cannot imagine a context that would some day, in some manner, make the monstrous crime of September 11 an understandable or comprehensible political act

Historically, terrorism falls in a category different from crimes that concern a criminal court judge.