War and Peace

Disbelief, astonishment, grief, anger, revenge, doubt, clarity, certainty, action, justice. Where have you got to on the ladder of reaction? It has been a long journey for all of us since the mass-murders in the USA on September 11th. The problems of daily life in Salisbury pale into insignificance - yet we must not be deflected from the concerns and trivia of our everyday lives - or the men of terror will have won. Life must go on as normal. Justice must be done.

Is war too strong a word? If armed terrorists, under the protection of a government, are organised in training camps calmly planning the destruction of our people and our cities, that is war. These people care nothing for international law. Like the Nazis before them they play by different rules. In 1939 it took the USA two years to join us in the fight for justice. No-one can wait that long this time.

This is not a war of religion. To be against Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda network is not to be anti-Islam or pro-Christian - but against evil. To be against the barbaric Talibans is not to be against the people of Afghanistan, but to condemn a wicked regime who use modern methods and equipment to inflict medieval brutality, who massacre, rape and deliberately starve people while their ruling theologians bar women from education and any form of public life or service.

If you waver in your determination to bring these evil men to justice, in the last resort by force, remember that the poverty, sickness and oppression of the starving refugees (who we must help) was caused by their unelected, unrecognised government which harbours bin Laden. He is the leader of the death squads who launched missiles full of people and fuel against thousands of innocent civilians who believed in liberty, tolerance and hard work; who paid their taxes and shouldered their civic responsibilities. These victims were people of many lands who shared our common roots and values and who chose to work in the land of liberty which, taking in the world's poor and oppressed, has become the greatest nation on earth.

If you are tempted to forgive and forget terrorism, recall the World Trade Centre, think of the Omagh bombing, remember the tears of the children of Northern Ireland, forced to run the gauntlet of crazy, jeering adults on their way to school.

Living peaceably in the valleys of south Wiltshire it is hard for us to understand the depth of the anguish of the American people. Nor are we the best judges of the reaction of their leaders. After all, our island's history is one of war and strife, in our homeland as well as in foreign parts. We are numbed, too, by the horror of terrorism in our land. Yet, the sheer effrontery of the assault on America creates a yearning for justice we can understand and share.

Future generations will not forgive us if we abdicate responsibility for upholding the freedom, democracy and rule of law for which our forbears fought and died. But, living as we do in a Magna Carta city, we should not hastily nor lightly surrender our civil liberties in the hope of catching criminals at the expense of our own freedom.

Many in our community will be in the front-line, military response to this outrage. Many will have been working patiently for years at CAMR or CBD Porton Down to protect both military and civilians from chemical and biological threats. But there are two things all of us must do.

First, we should respond generously to the massive needs of the innocent, starving, sick refugees from the Talibans - and pledge to help them rebuild their shattered lives and country.

Secondly, we should carry on as normal with our daily lives. That will underline our self-confidence as a community and as a nation.

From a position of strength and confidence we should also lead international opinion to accept the need to help build up the prosperity of the poorest nations and reduce their intellectual poverty, too. That is easier said than done in a world shaped by nineteenth-century empires and slow to throw off nineteenth-century political ideas, suspicious of economic imperialism and confused by globalisation. But that is the challenge I believe we should embrace.

If we find justice and build a new future, the sacrifice will not have been in vain.

ROBERT KEY MP