WHAT did the devastating terrorist assault on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon have to do with Mid Cheshire?

We shop, eat out and go to the cinema as we did before.

Nothing has changed other than the news has become more interesting!

We read the various editorials in the national newspapers and then we go about our business.

Things have changed though and the future is no longer a path that we can clearly see stretching safely into the distance.

Much will change. Our young people may find themselves required for military service.

Liberal thinking and political correctness will have to give way to common sense and that thing so loved by the left, civil liberties, will have to be put on the back burner.

As yet, we don't know what the American President intends to do.

The journalists can speculate as they did prior to the Gulf War but not much of that speculation involved major units of the British Royal Navy being sunk and body bags returning to England.

That was a minor conflagration compared with what could follow.

To eradicate terrorism as has been promised will be a massive undertaking, if not an impossible task.

The possibility of The West' fighting a war on several fronts cannot be ruled out. Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran are just three possible targets because they support Muslim fundamentalism.

Enough has been written about these fanatics and we have seen what they are capable of.

Whether you agree or disagree with American foreign policy, what was done to that country on September 11 was a crime against humanity.

The people and groups behind it have good cause to fear, as have their supporters across the world.

We have more in common with America than any country in Europe and we are sure to stand by them.

Cheshire is a green and pleasant county in a green and pleasant land and we may just have to fight to keep it that way.

Paul Hurley

Winsford