How to beat terrorism?

Fuck knows!

But you don't beat it by turning your country into a police state, eroding your citizens' freedoms, instilling paranoia or shooting the faces off innocent foreigners. You beat terrorism through effective intelligence, a trustworthy security and police service and by carrying on as normal. Will the British tradition of a cup of tea and a sit down help here?

Some peoples' attitudes to the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Station are sickening. Carole Malone, a columnist writing in the Sunday Mirror (quality!), says: "Tragic... but gun cops were right There's no question that the death of Jean Charles de Menezes is a tragedy. But then so were the deaths of 56 innocent people on July 7".

Stop right there! How long will it take before there are more innocent people murdered by our own trigger-happy, twitchy coppers; how long before the death toll of those killed "in tragic police misunderstandings" equals that of the terrorist victims? (See also a very forthright appraisal of events by visiting Angry Chimp).

This country is close to, or may have already, lost it big time and it's all down to that fucking cock Blair, his pathetically inept cabinet and the government's reign of paranoia that they've been trying to force-feed us since the 11th of September attacks. This lot just don't cut it, never have, but they're very good at duping the British electorate and look at the state of the nation now.

The war in Iraq and the military action has been blamed for these attacks in London. I'm sure they haven't helped in people's attitudes towards the UK, but the west was being targetted by Islamic extremists before we went into Iraq with all guns blazing.

There's a lot of work to be done on the part of the Muslim communities in the UK, who, for one reason or another, are allowing young men to develop murderous attitudes against their own neighbours (developing murderous attitudes is abhorrent full stop). There is no excuse for blowing people up, none whatsoever, and it seems that the Islamic message of peace isn't getting through to some. Fuck it, I don't know. It just seems that some people living in largely Asian areas have no intention of accepting British values and they'd rather sneer at Western society than do something to be a part of it while maintaining their identity. I don't think this attitude has helped one bit and the British have been too soft and done too much to cow down to those who want to live in little Karachis than encourage them to embrace (or even accept) our culture and our way of life.

It's easy to go on the attack though, and the same can be said for the Brits abroad in countries like Australia and Spain, where they all live together in their own little parts of the cities or towns. I guess people want to stick with what's familiar to them and you can't blame them.

But observers can see what's happening in the UK in the microenvironment of this post: finger-pointing; blaming your neighbours; fear; division. All things the terrorists want are now happening and it has to stop.

People need to be vigilant, but it's very hard to see things clearly in a blind panic.