what happens next will be the outcome of talk and text (cabinet meetings, public statements, media representations, individual utterances) and the text and talk will be governed by cognitive and interactive habits. Under stress pre-wired patterns of thought come into their own. Policies and the orders to execute them are linguistic acts with psychological, social and ethical underpinnings. These we can’t least try to be aware of as potential impediments to just and effective response. (email message, 12 September 2001) It is important to mention that, in the discourses of the media, politicians refer to ‘we’ the civilized world, the ‘free democracies’, ‘the West’, ‘the free world’, in contrast with ‘the other’ Eastern countries, where the terrorists may come from.