Words of wisdom

Instead of listening to the charges and countercharges from our leaders, both Democrat and Republican, read these words from the Financial Times:

Yet no system is perfectly secure, and even if the world's aircraft could be made secure at a reasonable cost in time and money, terrorists will always have other options as simple as truck bombs or explosives on trains and buses. There will be more attacks, perhaps deadly and dramatic ones.

The first response must be to adopt a foreign policy that saps terrorists of support without pandering to their demands. It should not be necessary to remind either the US or the British government that it is not possible simply to kill or catch all the terrorists until there are none left - a pointless strategy based on what one might call the "lump of terror" fallacy.

The second response must be a sense of proportion. More than 3,000 people died last year on our roads, but the roads stay open. Even the worst acts of terrorism reap their largest toll in hysterical responses. Scotland Yard's statement that they had disrupted a plot to cause "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" was alarmist even if it is true. Journalists - and terrorists - are perfectly capable of spreading hyperbole without any help from the police. The most powerful answer to terrorism is not to be terrified.