The crashing of hijacked aeroplanes into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon building in Washington, killing thousands, were appalling, brutal and callous acts. They violate every canon of human decency as we know it in the white western world - especially as they could not even he explained as being aimed at political targets; the dead and the maimed were ordinary people, men and women, going about their daily business. That they should be the victims of grievances held against politicians whether legitimate or not - is totally unacceptable.

Having made this point very clearly, we must part company with many of the resulting observations made by our political leaders and in the organs of "orthodox" opinion. Massive retaliation! That is a human enough reaction to such tragedies. And of course, in liberal democracies - particularly in the United States itself - political leaders hardly have any option but to make such vows of retributive action. Their TV viewers, newspaper readers and voters demand it. And by any normal yardstick of justice it is in principle right. It is not a time, however, in which such emotive responses should rule our judgement. Indeed, some cooler heads on both sides of the Atlantic are already urging us that we should think through very carefully the consequences of virtually declaring war on the 400 odd millions of the Islamic World - for that is what it would amount to if the retaliatory measures presently being talked about are taken. The United States and its allies might well have the technology to cause massive destruction in the targeted countries. But this will not prevent a recurrence of what happened in New York and Washington last month; it will only make it all the more certain.

The first fact that we must recognise is that these atrocities were neither mindless not cowardly, as some western leaders and commentators have claimed. The people engaged in them planned them and carried them out with great intelligence and also with great courage - a quite fanatical courage of a kind entirely beyond the comprehension of westerners, no doubt, but courage nevertheless. People would not do these things unless they had a cause in which they passionately believed and unless they were convinced that they were fighting a monstrous evil where the most extreme measures were justified. That nothing could justify what was done in the United States last month is axiomatic - to us. But to certain people of wholly different race, culture and belief, the whole world picture is very different. And one thing is certain: to visit terrible revenge on their co-religionists will serve as no deterrent. There are plenty more kamikaze-minded people in the Islamic World ready to do the same again, and with the organisational resources and the will to do it effectively. So what can America do? What can be done by other western nations, like Britain, who see themselves also as potential targets for outrages of this kind?

First of all, they must recognise the source of the hatred. In a certain endemic sense, it is racial. The tribes - diverse though they are - that make up the Islamic World harbour a visceral hatred of the white peoples. Nothing can be done about this.

But such visceral hatred alone would not suffice to explain current terrorism. The hatred is compounded by the fact that the United States, in particular, simply cannot mind its own business, attend to and protect its vital national interests and let the rest of the world go its own way. The US has been seized by a messianic belief that it is the whole world's conscience, regulator, protector and policeman, that it has the right to use economic and military might to impose its will on the whole planet. In a word, the problem is globalism - the concept of a "world order" in which sovereign nations are things of the past. The globalist, internationalist mentality has been, for the past half-century, the ruling factor in the politics of the western nations, and the United States in particular. Globalism is in fact doomed: some time not far into the new century it is going to be shipwrecked on the rocks of nationalism and self-determination. But like doomed ideologies and systems generally, it will fight its corner all the more viciously and intolerantly as it faces the prospect of its own extinction. This is what we see happening now.

But a further factor intrudes which aggravates everything. America is the headquarters of World Zionism - itself a particular form of globalism which sees the Jews in a special role in the projected world order, destined to lead the other nations and races to what they themselves like to call the "Brotherhood of Man" but what others regard as nothing less than Jewish imperialism and hegemony. Is this theory a wild one? Well, we see as a fact the complete domination by the Jewish Lobby over both the external and internal politics of the USA - to the point at which that nation considers itself irrevocably bound to support Israel in whatever conflict the latter may become embroiled in its region of the earth. It is the complete binding of the United States to Israel, which is a major cause of the hatred that it has incurred throughout the Islamic World. That hatred will not abate until the USA-Israeli tie are broken.

It is noticeable that, at every juncture at which the United States feels impelled to embark on yet another military adventure in fulfilment of its world policing role and calls upon the (white) nations of Europe and elsewhere to support her, those of the European mainland are less unreservedly enthusiastic to do so than is Britain. And it is the same now in response to the latest outrages. There is a good reason for this. In Continental Europe there is much greater awareness of the potentially damaging effects of American world hegemony and the exercising of it than in Britain. Here this is neatly and simplistically dismissed as "anti-Americanism", but what it really amounts to is a healthy nationalism residual in the European states concerned and an unwillingness always to pull America's perceived chestnuts out of the fire and at American command. When French leaders opt to look after their own interests, they are not being "anti-American" so much as pro-French. This national sense is almost wholly lacking in the mainstream leaders of our own country, who - whether they be Labour or Tory - can usually be relied upon to jump when the US President whistles.

No organ of opinion in Britain, whether large or small, has been more unrelenting in its advocacy of a hard line against terrorism than this magazine. For years we have condemned the soft policies adopted by successive British governments against the terrorism of the IRA and its allies. Where vital national interests require that we act to crush terrorists using all necessary means, we should do so. That remains our view.

But here something entirely different to vital national interests - whether they be British or American - is at issue. What is at issue is whether the Americans, with Britain as ever in tow, are going to continue in their futile policy of global mastery, regulation and enforcement. We say they should not. And if nevertheless they are determined to do so we most certainly should not help them.

Likewise at issue is whether the United States, regardless of her own true national interests, is going to allow herself to continue to suffer the political domination of the Israeli Lobby in Washington, and in consequence always side with Israel, whether the latter be right or wrong. We say she should not, and should she continue Britain should not follow suit.

That is the only way out of the present world crisis, of which the recent terrorist acts are not a cause but an inevitable outcome.

Our lamentable weakness

Aside from the main global issues involved in the recent American tragedy, a number of other uncomfortable realities have been highlighted by what has happened. There has been much talk of the failures of security in the United States, particularly at airports. Both there and everywhere else, we are promised that much tougher security precautions are going to be needed in the future to deal with the threat of terrorism on the new scale evident in the events of the 11th September.

But strangely, there has been virtually no mention of the most important security problem of all: the vast numbers of people of Asian and Middle Eastern race now to be found everywhere in the western countries, and no more so than in our own.

Just imagine that the same terrorist threat, and the same consequent security alert, existed in Britain, the United States or almost anywhere else in the West about 40-50 years ago. In such a situation the appearance of an Indian or Arab-looking person in the vicinity of an airport or busy urban thoroughfare, particularly if he or she were carrying a case of some kind, would present a pretty minor security problem. It would be appropriate to stop and search that person, ascertain what he or she was doing in the country, and satisfy ourselves beyond all doubt that the person was not a security risk.

Just imagine what kind of a task this would be with the numbers of these people now to be found milling around everywhere!