Oh I do love the Guardian and its Comment is Free site. I was reading through this little Simon Jenkins gem We are offering the terrorist a megaphone for his cause when I came across an excellent point
Nobody seems to know what, where or who al-Qaida is, yet the name is used to dust with global significance any bomb plot anywhere. Brown spoke of the car bombs as “al-Qaida-linked in motivation and ideology”. Why so glorify them? It is like linking a bank raid in the Old Kent Road “to the global mafia in motivation and ideology”. Why err on the side of terror rather than on the side of calm? Fear pumped up to the level of panic by the oxygen of publicity is precisely what the terrorist wants.
Mr Jenkins makes an excellent point in the fact that by drumming up fear and terror in the minds of John and Jane Q. Public, the terrorists are in fact winning (to an extent) by terrorising us whether or not the bombs went off.
I must admit, though, that Saturday night I did have second thoughts on going out to central London. With the Glasgow incident following so soon after the failed car bombs I did question my safety. But my husband and I pressed on and nothing happened. While we may certainly be less safe now than five or ten years ago I don’t let it stop me from going about my life. Saturday, after all, was the last time I could smoke in a pub anywhere in Britain so, by God, I was going to. Terrorists be damned and, again, get boils on their bottoms.