Thousands of people, and not just Americans, have clung to the hope their loved ones were still alive under the rubble. When hope dies we can easily be driven to blame someone - anyone - and then demand retaliation in kind. We cling on to such straws of comfort as the US's planned missile defence system, which can offer no protection against single-minded acts of barbaric terrorism.

A military-legal expert has written that citizens of countries engaged in wrongdoing are legitimate targets for retaliation because they condone the acts of their leaders.

This is a blueprint for terrorism. People should never be obliterated simply because of where they live. We should therefore rule out a sustained bombing attack against Afghanistan which would, in its turn, kill the innocent.

It would only encourage more violent attacks against the West.

There is no patent remedy for terrorism. The only hope is to remove its causes. Our security can only be rooted in an effort to build social and environmental justice.

Relying on the military might of the US is not the answer. Cycles of violence must be broken at some point otherwise they spiral through generations, causing untold suffering. We ask our leaders to break that cycle and search for peaceful solutions to conflicts. The place to seek this is a few blocks north of the World Trade Centre, at the United Nations Building. Underfunded as it is, the UN carries the hopes of all of us in its charter, which starts: "We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war..."

Let us now reclaim the United Nations.

-George Farebrother, Secretary, World Court Project UK (for Sussex Peace Alliance)