Lessons to Be Learned: The United States faces what Latin Americans already sadly know; Safety...

Some time has passed since the horrific airplane-bombings of the World Trade Center in New York, but their resonance hasn't. Many of my neighbors here in suburban northern California say they feel a new vulnerability.

Having lived in Latin America on and off since the 1960s keeps me from sharing in their sense of lost innocence. Latin Americans have a long history with homegrown terrorism, from the leftist Tupamaros in Uruguay in the '60s and '70s to Peru's Shining Path in the 1980 to the rightist paramilitaries today in Colombia. And long before Sept. 11, 2001, Latin