Matthew Paris on Terrorism in the Times today

Matthew Paris wrote a very convincing article in today's Times - the title was

"Evil plotters? More like sad and crackpot"


He makes a very convincing argument that the worst mistake we can make in our response to terrorist atacks is to glamorise the people responsible or present those who have tried to attack our society as evil geniuses.

Yes, we need to be alert and avoid handing these people any easy wins. They do have one characteristic which makes them more dangerous than some of the opponents we have faced in the past - a willingness to undertake attacks which the perpetrator has no chance of escaping. But at the same time, why make out that all these people are brilliant when some of them are really rather silly? When doctors of engineering and medicine fill a jeep with petrol and gas and crash it into a thick concrete barrier in an apparent attempt to set fire to it, perhaps instead of getting angry or frightened we should ask how these berks managed to obtain their qualifications.

Now I know that the USAF has very sophisticated and powerful "fuel air" bombs which aim to mix flammable substances into the atmosphere in exactly the right ratio of oxygen to fuel to cause an enormous bang when the mix is ignited. I also know that arranging for that mix is easier said than done. Unlike the gentleman who allegedly drove the jeep at Glasgow Airport, I don't have a doctorate in fluid hydrodynamics, but if you'd asked most reasonably intelligent people what would happen when a jeep full of petrol and gas cylinders was driven into a substantial concrete barrier, I think they would predict that this attack would not be sophisticated enough to cause a fuel-air explosion and the jeep would merely be burnt to a shell. Most of us do know that concrete doesn't burn. If a guy with a doctorate in fluid hydrodynamics thought this attack had a chance of success, does that mean that we ought to be worried, or just that he is completely off his head?


To quote selectively from Matthew's article (I'm leaving quite a bit out but I'm not changing the meaning)

"Yes, silly. Not "evil." - Take care ... with that word "evil". Evil is cool. Evil sells DVDs and airort thrillers.

We're not talking anything as clever as Evil here: we're talking Weird, we're talking Crackpot, we're talking Sad.

Islamist plotters, thought hugely dangerous as any fool can be dangerous, don't seem to be anything like as clever as the media keep telling us."

Matthew has a point. Again, there is a threat from the terrorists and we must be vigilant. Every person they kill is one too many. But don't let anyone tell you that they are vastly more dangerous than other threats which our society has faced down and surmounted. The reverse is the case.

Any rational person who compares the threat posed by Bin Laden and his acolytes and imitators with Nazi Germany or the Cold-War era Soviet Union is likely to conclude that the latter two were much more serious. And we should think carefully before enacting any draconian measures which were not needed to defeat the Nazis or the KGB.

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