The attack on the United States last Tuesday has brought home to the west two uncomfortable realities - the ferocious hatred felt for America; and that none of us will ever feel safe again. So, asks Martin Amis, where do we go from here?

Special report: terrorism in the US

I have never seen a generically familiar object so transformed by effect. That second plane looked eagerly alive, and galvanised with malice, and wholly alien. For those thousands in the south tower, the second plane meant the end of everything. For us, its glint was the worldflash of a coming future.

Terrorism is political communication by other means. The message of September 11 ran as follows: America, it is time you learned how implacably you are hated. United Airlines Flight 175 was an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile aimed at her innocence. That innocence, it was here being claimed, was a luxurious and anachronistic delusion.

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