Even though there's much carping about the CIA's failures in regard to Tuesday's attacks, there seems to be an unparalleled unity between the White House and the Congress on the desire for a swift and savage retaliatory response, a response that one Pentagon official described as demonstrating "our big hammer, a very large hammer that can be brought to bear in a number of ways at any time. That's not a threat, it's a fact.''

The Senate and House, in between a rash of bomb threats and "suspicious packages" that emptied the Capitol building on Thursday evening, have moved forward with a $40 billion military package that may signal the onset of a huge military build up and the end of all rational debate about the fate of the social security system. Thus was the lock-box blown apart.

So what's in store? We got some clue today from Paul Wolfowitz, the hyper-hawkish assistant secretary of defense, who said that the Pentagon would begin examining how to retaliate against the "host countries" of terrorists with the intent of "ending states that support terrorism". In other words, the decimation, occupation and reconstitution of nations that the Bush crowd finger as being part of Terror Inc. Afghanistan won't be the only target (Iraq, ever the whipping post of the Bush crowd, and, perhaps, Iran are also on the list), but the Russian experience in the Hindu Kush and in Chechnya should give any rationale military planner pause. Years of fighting, thousands dead, no ground gained.

But word coming out of the Pentagon is grim. A top Pentagon official told NBC news on Thursday evening that "Americans have to get over their fear of bloodshed. The events of Tuesday should have vaccinated them against a fear of casualties."

Most revealing reaction

Benyamin Netanyahu, former Israeli prime minister, on being asked what the attack means for relations between the US and Israel: "It's very good."

Least credible analysis

New York Times columnist William Safire, claiming there was a terrorist mole in the White House, relaying to the kamikaze pilots the whereabouts of the President and the special coordinates of Air Force One. Safire's political mission in that particular column was to explain why the President fled down a SAC bunker in Nebraska.

Least credible news footage

CNN's videotape of Palestinians supposedly dancing in the streets of a West Bank town. CounterPuncher Marcio A.V. Carvalho at the state university of Campinas in Brazil tells us that he and his colleagues had compared this tape with one from 1991 showing Palestinian cheering, and found them to be identical.