The flaw in this logic is to assume that terrorism is like the weather — everyone complains about it, but no one can really do anything about it — and that it has always been with us and will always be with us.

This is nonsense, of course. Terrorism is a symptom of the abject failure of human relations, of the imbalance of wealth and power in the world, and of the unreasonable tolerance our societies have for fundamentalist religion of all creeds.

Imagine if, in the wake of 9/11, Bush had announced an energy-independence program is a similar vein to Kennedy’s moon shot program. Imagine he had committed only ten per cent of what the Iraq war will cost to a program that would move the USA from an oil-based economy to a hydrogen-based economy.

Such a program would, over time, relieve the fanatics of their money, which ultimately comes from the sale of oil. It would relieve the US of having to intervene in the Middle East, thus removing the stimulus for terrorist attacks against the US. It would save lives. It would boost the American economy by making the US a technology leader in cleaner energy. And — oh, yes — it would curb global warming.

If your way of life is causing people to fly airplanes into your office buildings, it is time to examine your way of life.

I think this goes beyond politics, to a basic animal need to stay alive, at any cost. Humans have rarely, if ever, gone against their basic genetic directives, to stay alive, to consume, to reproduce. Freedom is a recent invention, and a wonderful thing, but tough to compete with the ancient imperatives.