The Argus is a regional paper and I am a local yokel. But there is only one subject I can write about today.

That concerns the deaths of thousands of people thousands of miles away in America.

Every now and again, an event jolts ordinary people out of their ordinary lives and makes them think beyond the four corners of their little empires and this unquestionably is one of them.

There has been greater loss of life in natural disasters but this was cold-blooded and ruthless murder.

Previous generations were used to war and used to death. As a child I was convinced from an elementary reading of history that millions of people, including me, would die within a few years in a third world war.

It didn't happen and most people are leading longer, more prosperous lives than ever before. Many seldom, if ever, see a dead body. When modern wars are fought, as in the Gulf and Kosovo, technology is so sophisticated that it is possible for some nations to complete the job with remarkably few casualties.

The attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and on the Pentagon are being compared in some quarters to the raid on Pearl Harbor almost 60 years ago. But that occurred during the last world war and it was plain who the aggressor was. America was able to retaliate by entering the conflict.

But this time there is no war and at the time of writing we do not even know who planned the suicide raids. The targets were people going about their normal jobs. They were nothing to do with conventional conflict and everything to do with international terrorism.

It takes only a few fanatics to change the course of history. Lone gunmen assassinated politicians such as Kennedy and leaders such as Martin Luther King. This new assault on the heart of America could have been carried out by as few as a dozen people in no way representative of public opinion.

Millions of people are shocked by what has happened. But there is a small but significant minority which thinks America is a cocksure, arrogant country, deserving setbacks. There was even dancing in some Palestinian streets when the news came through.

The USA has many faults. It is wasting energy on an enormous scale which threatens the planet. In the world family, it is like a giant younger brother, blundering about, impressing and annoying colleagues in equal measure. But it is a generous nation, full of vitality and, above all, it is democratic.

This shocking attack on America will affect the whole world. It will lead to increased security, higher fuel prices and a downturn in trade. It will certainly lead to retaliation by the USA although it may be easy to miss a shadowy target and that could make the planet an even more dangerous place.

There are many questions to be asked. Whatever happened to US intelligence information? Where was the fourth plane, which crashed into the ground with no survivors, heading? Ought we to be putting up skyscrapers such as the World Trade Centre which are such easy targets and which cause catastrophe when they are attacked?

No doubt security will be intense when Tony Blair visits Brighton at the end of this month for the Labour conference. We hardly need reminding that terrorists attempted to kill his two predecessors, Margaret Thatcher at The Grand hotel and John Major at Downing Street. But it is vital so that we can protect both our democratic leaders and institutions and ensure that we can continue to lead our fairly free lives, no matter how mundane they seem when measured against international tragedy.