Awakening the Lion

I only have one thing to say in response to the terrorist attacks in London. I think that the terrorists have misunderstood who they have attacked. Despite their geographic proximity to France and Spain, the British are different. The terrorists will soon learn how. To paraphrase John Derbyshire, let Britain's enemies crow today; tomorrow they will tremble, and weep.

UPDATE: Well, it turns out that the Derb, an actual Brit, disagrees about how Britain will respond:

The popular answer at the moment is that they will not. The Brits will summon up the spirit of the Blitz, face up to the enemy fearlessly, and soldier on.

I don't feel at all sure about this, and if I had any money, would bet the other way.

The Blitz was an entirely different affair. A neighboring power was sending bombers over to break Britain's will, so that they could take the country over and run it as a satellite under puppet rulers, or as a province of their empire. So the British believed in 1940. The choice was to stand and fight, or go under. Of course, they stood and fought, fortified by a strong, proud sense of national and cultural identity.

Now, it may indeed be that the Jihadis think they can break Britain's will and take the place over. It may even be that they are right. Problem is, very few people in Britain believe this. The threat doesn't seem dire. We can deduce this -- the fact of the threat not seeming dire, whether it actually is dire or not can be deduced from the fact that extremists have not been interned or expelled, as would be done if Britons at large felt their nation under threat. They don't.

To the British, jihadism is just a nuisance -- as the IRA was in the 1970s-1990s... and, come to think of it, as Hitler was in 1938. How do the British instinctively react to this kind of (as they perceive it, rightly or wrongly) non-nation-threatening nuisance? They appease it. They pay the Dane-geld.

All the fine words we are hearing about "not giving in to terror" sound very grand. Yet in fact, the last terror campaign in Britain -- the one run by the IRA -- was very successful. Gerry Adams is not dead; he is riding around in chauffered limousines, paid for by the British taxpayer. The IRA front party, Sinn Fein, is doing very well in elections all over Ireland, North and South. Tony Blair sold out to them completely, with the entire approval of the British public.

Well, (1) Derb is a notorious pessimist and (2) people were predicting that Britain would roll over and die when the Falklands were invaded. That didn't turn out too well for the Argentines. I still have faith in British courage.