Editorial - America mourns and plans for war

AMERICA is mourning even as it takes the first tentative steps to go to war. The almost universal support from around the world is couched in language specifically targeting terrorism as the enemy.

But unlike the conventional conflicts of the past the foe is not a nation-state with borders and administrative structure.

Nearly a week after the horror which has devastated lower Manhattan and sections of the Pentagon in Washington D.C. the trappings of grief still prevail. The resort to religious devotion is as moving as the evocation of national spirit and bipartisan resolve.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the prevailing mood is the suspension of major sporting activity as well as popular entertainment.

The suspension also of the financial markets could be attributable to the fact that the destruction of the World Trade Centre complex was near the heart of Wall Street activities. The latter, of course, is a key determinant of financial activity in a chain spanning the world.

The big questions of how the shadowy force of furtive terrorists could so easily cripple the world's only superpower are still to be resolved.

The fiendishly planned exercise eluded existing intelligence; and, as some experts say, may have changed forever the notions of war as staged between territorial armies over the centuries.

Perhaps the most critical element is that of the teams of hijackers who were "suicide bombers" willingly sacrificing their lives for some supposedly higher reward.

Nonetheless America seems committed to some kind of military response. Between Friday and yesterday the Congress passed bipartisan resolutions authorising the President to "use all necessary and appropriate force" in retaliation for the terrorist attack.

While not a formal declaration of war, the resolutions are said to be modelled after such a declaration, giving the President the requisite authority, while assuring the lawmakers a measure of oversight and consultation.

The President has also authorised the Pentagon to call up 50,000 reservists "for homeland defence" in an exercise described as "partial mobilization".

The stage is thus being set for some form of military action when the target is identified. It could be a strange new war, the first of its kind for the 21st century.

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