But look at the questions we're not asking. Back in 1991 we dumped the cost of the Gulf War - billions of dollars of it - on Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. But the Saudis and Kuwaitis are not going to fund our bombing this time round. So who's going to pay? When? How much will it cost us - and I mean us? The first night of bombing cost, so we are told, at least $2m, I suspect much more. Let us not ask how many Afghans that would have fed - but do let's ask how much of our money is going towards the war and how much towards humanitarian aid.

Here's the half of the story that the media and the Bush team bring you: Under cover of darkness, U.S. food packets rained from the sky like manna upon the hungriest parts of Afghanistan.

Here's the other half - which requires some independent research and imagination: unguided crates crash to ground in the pitch black. Hungry Afghans rush to gather them up. Too late. Another explosion, then another. Parents watch in horror as the brightly colored packets tempt their children onto landmines.

According to the International Campaign: "Afghanistan remains one of the most mine and UXO [unexploded ordnance] affected countries in the world.

Says the Campaign: "In the year 2000, an average of about eighty-eight casualties per month were attributed to landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Afghanistan."

Alex Renton works for Oxfam International in Islamabad, Pakistan. "I cannot overstate how lethal it is to drop anything on Afghanistan," Renton said today.

Mohammed Kroessin, director of Muslim Aid, which has already raised £500,000 in aid, said the military action "will cause immense suffering to millions of starving people. Air drops will not be useful".

The director of the Catholic charity Cafod, Julian Filichowski, said: "It is a matter of fact that even the threat of military action has made the humanitarian situation worse. The start of military attacks on Afghanistan, even if limited, will exacerbate problems."

None of the Anglo-American onslaughts since 1991 can match the cruel absurdity of this week's bombing of one of the poorest and most ruined countries in the world by the planet's richest and most powerful state, assisted as ever by its British satrap.

For all the earnest assurances about pinpoint targeting, the civilian death toll is already mounting, including the incineration of four employees of the UN's mine-clearing agency by a cruise missile as they lay sleeping in a Kabul suburb. The almost comical futility of the military overkill was epitomized by General Richard Myers, US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, who declared yesterday that "we now have air supremacy over Afghanistan".

The longer the campaign goes on and the wider it spreads, the greater the risk that many Middle Eastern governments dearest to the west will be consigned to oblivion. If the aim of the war launched last Sunday is to put an end to terrorism, it makes no sense. But if, as some in the US clearly want, this campaign becomes the vehicle for achieving wider US strategic objectives - in Iraq, central Asia or elsewhere - it risks a catastrophe.

TUCSON -- I cannot find the glory in this day. When I picked up the newspaper and saw "America Strikes Back!" blazed boastfully across it in letters I swear were 10 inches tall-- my heart sank. We've answered one terrorist act with another, raining death on the most war-scarred, terrified populace that ever crept to a doorway and looked out.

A well-kept secret about the U.S.-U.K. attack on Afghanistan is that it is clearly illegal. It violates international law and the express words of the United Nations Charter.

The right of self-defense in international law is like the right of self-defense in our own law: It allows you to defend yourself when the law is not around, but it does not allow you to take the law into your own hands. Since the United States and Britain have undertaken this attack without the explicit authorization of the Security Council, those who die from it will be victims of a crime against humanity, just like the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Even the Security Council is only permitted to authorize the use of force where "necessary to maintain and restore international peace and security." Now it must be clear to everyone that the military attack on Afghanistan has nothing to do with preventing terrorism. This attack will be far more likely to provoke terrorism.

The bombing of Afghanistan is the legal and moral equivalent of what was done to the Americans on Sept. 11. We may come to remember that day, not for its human tragedy, but for the beginning of a headlong plunge into a violent, lawless world.