Periodically, the Guardian newspaper carries an op-ed piece on how somebody or other, typically a Western government, is sowing fear for some nefarious purpose. If the piece isn't by Madeleine Bunting, then it's likely to be by Simon Jenkins. And so it is today. He's talking 'scaremongering', 'politics of fear', 'fear politics', 'the pervasiveness of fear' - you get the general picture. Such fear-frettery has succeeded, according to Jenkins, in turning 'what was a tiny, if efficient, cabal of fanatics into a global menace'. You know: New York, Bali, Madrid, London, Mumbai and plenty more; but it ain't no global menace really, except for the exaggerated fear fiesta set off by the fear-fretters, fear-setters and fear-begetters.
Now, you will not fail to notice that Simon Jenkins is a partisan of the rule of law, ever vigilant towards government attempts to erode this. But, remarkably, the rule of law isn't threatened by terrorism. 'At least organised crime and communism posed genuine threats to American liberties. Al-Qaida does not' - so Jenkins opines. Again: 'A network of criminal suicide squads with no coherent programme has no conceivable hope of undermining western democracy. It can just set off bombs.' As long as the squads are only kidnapping, torturing and murdering people, you see, law and liberties remain intact - even if not the liberties of those particular people happening to be now dead or horribly injured.
There is something deeply contemptible about this section of Western liberal opinion and its most consistent organ, The Guardian. Its spokespeople can assimilate everything done by Islamist enemies of the rule of law and of the liberties of the not-yet-murdered. For the laid-back, bien-pensant commentators, each terrorist episode is only a minor disruption. Why, more people get killed on the roads, don't you know? But when did you ever hear one of them saying the same sort of thing about the inmates of Guantánamo or the victims of extraordinary rendition? When did you ever hear this computed in terms of traffic accidents? Here we have violations of liberty - as indeed we do. No fear-mongering talk if one should protest about it. But only let there be blood on the streets caused by groups openly proclaiming their hatred of secular law and liberty, and the Simon Jenkinses and the rest of his Guardianista ilk can't wait to impress upon you how very relaxed you ought to be about it.