Tom Bevan, the highly insightful commentator at Real Clear Politics, seems to agree with me about the London attacks: they are self—defeating.

America feels for Britain today. Out of a sense of sadness and grief, yes, but also out of a sense of rage. More than any terrorist attack abroad so far, this one is intensely personal.

As I read news accounts of the attacks I found myself reacting with almost the same emotion as if they had happened here in The States. I caught myself thinking of London not as an English city but as my city as well. And when Tony Blair spoke I felt immensely proud of him, much like I felt about George W. Bush on September 11. I suspect other Americans had the same reaction.

Such emotion serves to highlight an important point, which is that the terrorists made a serious strategic blunder today. It could very well be that the terrorists have no strategy at all and are simply trying to inflict damage whenever and wherever they can.

But whether strategic or not, today's attacks will almost certainly serve to stiffen — rather than soften — the spine of the Brits in fighting the war on terror. That goes for the United States as well.

The reason is that the Brits are at their core an extremely tough bunch. Terrorists who may have sought a repeat performance of Madrid need to read up on history: when it comes to matters of courage, fortitude, toughness and tenacity, the British have a heck of a lot more in common with America than they do Old Europe.

In fact, over the course of the last century there have been only a tiny handful of countries who have shown a consistent willingness to do the heavy lifting for the rest of the world to fight evil; to spend the blood and the treasure other countries were either unwilling or unable to spend to defeat the evils of Nazism, Communism and now radical Islamism. Along with America, Britain has always been one of those countries — and she always will be.

Well said.

Thomas Lifson   7 7 05