Eyeless in Gaza

What a weapon the Jihadists have.

Twenty people intend to use a liquid-based explosive on ten planes. Immediately, millions of people must change their plans and their behaviour all of which involves the unforeseen expense of billions of pounds and the collective loss of years of time. How often will they have to do it to bring about the chaos they yearn for?

Shackled up with utopian delusions, few people can do so much. Unmoveable conviction is powerful. What a shame there is no link between conviction and truth. How easily is rationality banished and replaced with fear and desire, in them and us. This is how we end up where Matthew Arnold imagined us,

on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.