“Terrorists can be defeated simply by not becoming terrified — that is, anything that enhances fear effectively gives in to them.”

Oh, how true these words seem after having been ensnarled last weekend in the Heathrow mess – over a supposed plot that more and more is beginning to sound like a lot less than it was made out to be. Here is an article that everyone in America should read immediately. My first thought was, indeed, exactly as the Cato Institute article expressed it: wow, even if they didn’t get to do what they allegedly were planning to do, the terrorists sure must be chuckling right now. Osama must be doubled over in laughter. With parking garage tents and mounds of bottled water, Heathrow looked like a refugee camp, just over the mere possibility that a plan might be put in place sometime in the next few months. (Meanwhile, Tony Blair stayed on holiday somewhere in the Caribbean while thousands camped out in the cold in his airport. George did, too, of course.)

The second thought was the sense that everyone in the rest of the world is trying very actively to find ways of disengaging from the United States as much as possible. Right now, as they say (or something similar), when the U.S. sneezes, everyone else catches a cold. The Brits made no bones about attributing delays to U.S. Homeland Security, as when we waited out at the runway for almost 3 hours while the passenger list was given a thorough check in the U.S. before we were allowed to take off. Better safe than sorry, I suppose, but if it means effectively shutting down the air transportation system, and that’s what this was, then I don’t know. As the Cato writer said, we are more likely to be killed by a deer hit by our car than an act of terrorism.

According to some reports, the British authorities wanted to keep investigating, thinking that, with many of the supposed conspirators yet to even apply for passports, there was time to build more evidence for making appropriate plans and arrests that would stick. The U.S., however, wanted them to act immediately. When we left, the British authorities were grounding mostly local flights and flights to Europe, while flights to the U.S. were allowed to go. I wondered how the people stranded by that decision felt about it. If the United States comes to be seen as mostly a pain-in-the-butt always looking out for its own interests, and everyone else be damned, we sure as hell are not going to be able to function as a world leader. All that, plus the incredible weakness of the dollar against the pound and the Euro, suggested that we are losing ground not only as a leader, but even in our competitiveness.