On the continuing discussion of Iraq and the terrorist threat, I was amazed to hear several perfectly reasonable people suggest that, had we used nuclear weapons on September 12, 2001, we could have sent a message to the Islamic world not to mess with us, and so forth. It struck me as a grossly out of proportion position to take on the problem at hand.

I wonder into what perspective do we all place the events of 9/11/01 in our minds? I see it as a calamitous even, to be sure, and an unwarranted attack on our country. I do not see it, however, as something that should have resulted in a nuclear reprisal.

Furthermore, I see it as an example of gross governmental negligence as well. We had a National Security Advisor who apparently thought her own actions, or inactions, were justified because the terrorists had not been kind enough to give her a date, time, and place of their proposed attacks. We had a security system that allowed a known terrorist cell to train in our country, to use our facilities, and to steal our aircraft to do harm to us. And we had an event that was graced by exceptional good luck to the band of terrorists who managed to kill over 3,000 Americans and put a multi-billion dent in our economy by employing box cutters and a willingness to die for their cause.

On 60 Minutes tonight, Andy Rooney suggested that there is a great deal of hysteria involved in our response to terrorism. He played a clip of Tom Ridge's farewell speech, in which he offered the disturbing idea of how easy it would be for terrorists to poison our food supply and kill multitudes. Rooney thinks we're making far too big a deal about it, and I agree. We need vigilance, of course, but to what degree?

Our recent election turned on the ability of the Republican Party to mine the fear factor--they played up "national security" and ignored, for the most part, other pressing matters, like the shrinking value of the dollar and our growing indebtedness to the rest of the world. Ironically, the residents of the vast area surrounding Ground Zero--who, one would think, would have the greatest reason to be afraid--did not buy this argument. They voted, overwhelmingly, for John Kerry.

So my question is this: How afraid are you of the terrorist threat? More afraid than you are to get in your car every day and risk life and limb on the highways, where, statistically at least, you have a far greater chance of meeting a premature demise than you do from a terrorist attack?

Joe B.