reflections on the terror attacks

I think the really interesting thing about the latest terrorist attacks in Britain is what it might have been. Most of the alleged participants are doctors, medical students or somehow connected with the National Health Service. Dumbass terrists. They could have really terrified people by slowly and steadily killing patients - or killing a bunch of patients over a two week period and then going out in some kind of blaze of glory. Holy moly. The NHS would collapse. Any vestige of "commuity cohesion" would collapse. Folks would be quite hesitant to entrust their wee kids to the good Dr Mohammed Ibrahim - even though Mo has a beer on a Saturday (when he's not on call) and despises the whole terror thing and wants to live a quiet life.

Asians are perhaps overrepresented on the General Practitioner rolls and I could quite see the untrusting white, black and Asian populations being accused of racism, Islamaphobia or sectarianism when they refuse to get a jab from the brown doctor.

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Normally my initial reaction to any kind of terror plot is "How is this going to inconvenience me?" I changed my whole vacation plans last year because I didn't want the hassle of airport security and the whole liquids ban thing. I avoided the plane and took the cross-channel ferry. I'm not afraid of dying - after all the numbers are really still in my favor. I don't know anyone who's died in al Qaeda action - but the Vol-in-Law lost two cousins in a ferry disaster. And despite growing up in Belfast, he didn't know anyone who was killed in terror attack. So ferries 3, terror 0 in our book* - but we still took the boat.

This summer I'm not really planning on flying anywhere - and I'm not really that bothered by the inconvenience of my visiting relatives. But one thing does trouble me; the plot centered on Calor gas - the canisters used for bbq grills and patio heaters and such like. Is there likely to be increased security around propane** and propane accessories? Am I going to have trouble getting a refill on my near empty cannister of gas? Should the sun ever come out, should there be a break in the clouds, a moment of bbq weather will I be left gasless?

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Over at Harry's Place, they're hopeful that a new, more sensible, dialogue is emerging:

Something else has changed in the past week and it is certainly not just
the result of a few articles from ex-Islamists and sensible mainstream British
Muslims. After the failed bombings in London and Glasgow there has been much
less of the 'we had it coming' apologist claptrap in the media reaction and a
much greater willingness to accept that Islamist terrorists mean what they say
and are what they are.

Maybe. But at the same time British polticians and leftist commentators are discussing these latest terror attempts without mentioning the words Muslim, Islamist or sometimes even terrorist. We all know that not all Muslims are terrorists. We know that already. But let us face up to what Islamism really is.
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*one of the cousin's fiance was also killed - and he did know someone who was permanently disabled by an IRA bomb

**actually most bbq gas in this country is the inferior, but safer, butane