I feel like the chief difference is that in this case, it was the US
that was injured. There isn't any difference between Lockerbie
(spelling?) or this (excepting final death toll) other than location.
-j-
There are several differences I think. The WTC attack killed an order of magnititude more people and potentiailly could have been even worse. It disrupted the lives of people who lived in that community permanently (that community is essentially destroyed; the thing that replaces it will be a different community is different people and a different feel). The WTC attack also caused more economic havoc. This may not seem like a big deal or only a big deal to the "blood sucking" financial types who live in New York but this attack has had a significant impact on the world economy. In addition, the response to the attack was the product of uncertainty over what was coming next. We did not know then and do not know now whether more attacks of equal effectiveness were being planned. What would have happened if attacks on major landmarks or financial institutions in London,! ! Paris, Rome Moscow, Chicago etc. were carried out?
Lockerbie for better or worse was seen as a one time event. There was no sense that we were in for a rash of bombings and no notion that the loss from such an event could be massively escalated by guiding the planes to targets with suicide bombers.
It was the ferocity of the attack, its coordination, and the fact that people would commit suicide to carry them out that so raised the fear and the response level to this attack. I believe that the response would have been same if an attack of similar magnitude had hit London (e.g. House of Commons, Buckingham Palace) Paris or any other major western city.
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