One has to be realistic and cautious in this world,but one has to stand up to jihadi terrorism too.

That kid should get a freaking medal.

I'm sorry: when did it become illegal to use a firing range? Does the NRA know? And when did the First Amendment stop applying to people shouting "God Is Great?"

What if the manager had explained to the clerk that the United States has a constitution, even though most of its provisions are now routinely ignored as petty inconveniences by the government in its "war on democracy terror", and that the people on the video were exercising their rights under it?

I don't suppose any of the arrested Muslims can expect such Communist fripperies as a trial or any of that stuff; they will simply be lost in the New Gulag, in Guantanamo if they're lucky, or in a torture camp in Sudan or somewhere if not.

Curiously, these over-zealous idiots never spot the people like Seung-Hui Cho who actually pose a threat to human life. But then, he wasn't bearded and wearing "fundamentalist attire".

I am prepared to bet that if a group of Orthodox Jews had been using the range (bearded, fundamentalist attire) and calling out anti-Muslim slogans as they shot, the manager would have told the clerk to stop wasting his time.

OK, Rob, so the kid follows your advice and the guys don't get caught, and they blow up a lot of US soldiers in Ft Dix. Happy?

BTW what would you suggest we should have done to catch the 9-11 perpetrators? "They didn't do it" and "America deserved it" don't count.

Too little too late, the camel is already in the tent.

I'm sorry: when did it become illegal to use a firing range? Does the NRA know? And when did the First Amendment stop applying to people shouting "God Is Great?"

Rob, unlike the British, Americans have never relied upon a "covenant of security" deal with terrorists. Instead of feeding the crocodile, and hoping that it will eat us last, we have to deal with political crimes against humanity the old fashioned way - by treating suspicious characters with suspicion.

If we were really interested in fighting terrorism, we wouldn't let Saudis or Brits into the country without extensive background checks. According to Arab/Muslim opinion, due to Saudi Wahhabism and British deals with radicals, most terrorism comes from those two nations.

So how's that covenant of security working out for you now? Terrorists still love Britain, more than ever. Should have read the fine print.

Working pretty well thanks. Still a damned sight safer here than in the USA (and it isn't Muslim terrorists that worry me there either - its' paranoid nutters who think they're fighting a "war on terror").

Judith - and you know they were going to blow up Fort Dix how exactly? Oh, wait, it must have come out at the trial they never had, and are unlikely ever to get.

"They must have been guilty because they were arrested" isn't much of an argument.

How to have caught the 9-11 terrorists? Well, I guess not letting people take knives on planes was a smart move, and if anyone had thought of the risk beforehand maybe 9-11 wouldn't have happened, or at least not in the way it did. But if you want hindsight, perhaps paying more attention to the people reproted as acting suspiciously in flying schools would have been smart. And after the event, not letting Bin Laden's family fly home while everyone else in the USA was grounded would have been even smarter. Finally, actually going after bin Laden in Afghanistan instead of being sidetracked into the utterly irrelevant (to 9/11) adventure in Iraq: that would have been smart. As it is, quite apart from all the other disasters that Iraq has brought in its wake (total collapse of the country, replacement of modern secular society with medieval Islamic one, thousands of dead Amercans, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis) you're no nearer to catching bin Laden now than you were on 9/11. Meanwhile, you arrest Muslims on firing ranges and make them disappear. Brilliant.

As I said, a bunch of Orthodox Jews behaving in an equivalent manner would have attracted no attention whatsoever, because this isn't about terrorism, it's about religious persecution. A Korean guy runs round shooting students and the American right complains that there weren't enough guns in the classrooms. A bunch of Arab-Americans shoot safely at targets on a legal firing range and they're arrested because they said the wrong things and a bozo in a video store wants to be famous for fifteen minutes.

If the Arab guys were being so suspicious, why didn't the operators of the firing range report them? Perhaps they had more sense, being used to seeing people on shooting ranges, and having a good idea of what is and is not worrying behaviour. And perhaps, of course, they too are now wearing a tasteful shade of orange while being urinated on by America's Finest in a torture camp somewhere. We'll never know.

What a wonderful society America is becoming. I'll take European democracy any day. In Europe we had all that secret police/torture/prison camp/locking people up for their opinions stuff 70 years ago. We've moved on, mostly.

"perhaps paying more attention to the people reproted as acting suspiciously in flying schools would have been smart."

But Rob, they were just Arab students studying commercial jet flying! What's suspicious about that, you racist? (by your logic)

"And after the event, not letting Bin Laden's family fly home while everyone else in the USA was grounded would have been even smarter."

Didn't happen. And how would that have prevented 9-11 retroactively? Can I rent your time machine?

"Finally, actually going after bin Laden in Afghanistan instead of being sidetracked into the utterly irrelevant (to 9/11) adventure in Iraq: that would have been smart."

Again, after the fact. So you are just opportunistically loading up this topic with rhetorical points, none of which have anything to do with preventing 9-11.

So I conclude that you have nothing to say on the topic, since your one suggestion would have us doing exact;y what you think we shouldn't be doing with the Ft Dix suspects.

"you're no nearer to catching bin Laden now than you were on 9/11."

Catching Bin Laden is tactical. Successful counter-insurgency is strategic.

"Meanwhile, you arrest Muslims on firing ranges and make them disappear. Brilliant."

Um, when did we "make them disappear"?

And Rob, they all have connections to jihadi groups. As would have Mohammed Atta & Co., if we had caught them. At which point you would say we are making stuff up to distract from the encroaching ChimpymcBushitler dictatorship.

So how's that covenant of security working out for you now?..

Working pretty well thanks.

Wow, so you're openly admitting that you're okay with the idea of feeding and pampering terrorists and religious fascists, letting them openly plot the slaughter of innoncents in Egypt, America, Pakistan, Iraq, India, etc. on your home turf if they promise to kill you last. I guess an open admission of quivering obsequiousness is worth something. Thanks for sharing.

I know you're not representative of all Brits, but you obviously can answer this question with some authority - Can you tell us what on earth happened to Winston Churchill's noble, principled Britain? How did it fall so far so fast?

Mary - I imagine it was associating too closely with G W Bush's ignoble, unprincipled America.

When it comes to feeding and pampering terrorists, the nation that just released Luis Posada (who had escaped from his prison sentence for the murder of 70-odd people in the airliner he bombed) doesn't get to give Britain lessons.

The difference between America and Britain (other than a slightly lesser infestation of far-right nutters such as those who hang around KT) is that we believe in the rule of law. If that means treating terrorists like other murder suspects and giving them trials rather than having them vanish into the Gulag, then Vive la difference!

Judith - the "Arab students studying commercial jet flying" expressed a curious disinclination to learn how to land the aircraft, normally an early part of the traning for good reason. And that doesn't strike you as suspicious? If they want to chant "Allahu Akbar" I don't have a problem with that, but "Hey dude, I'm not interested in coming back" rings my alarm bells, certainly.

Yes, I'm sorry, my bad, the planeload of bin Laden's rich relations flew out not durng the flight ban but on 20 September, over a week after 9/11 and with the blessing of the FBI. Now I wonder how you would describe it if those relatives had been in Britain (sorry, "Londonistan") and we'd simply waved them off while paying lip service to seaching for Osama? I'm not suggesting that you should have flung them into Guantanamo or shipped them off to Sudan or wherever to have their fingernails ripped out, but I am amazed that in only nine days the FBI seems to have decided that these people, the closest leads on American soil at the time to the most wanted man on the planet, are of absolutely no interest and can leave. Strangely it seems to take years of international complaints to reach the same conclusion about the arbitrarily abducted (mostly bought for cash from bounty hunters) "enemy combatants" with no connection whatsoever to terrorism, let alone a close relationship with OBL. I don't suppose the offer of a small part of the bin Ladens' vast wealth might possibly have tempted anyone to bend a rule or two, because that sort of thing never happens. Not on planet Kesher Talk anyway.

Rob, I already responded to your defense of Britains covenant of security, but it hasn't appeared. There may be a glitch in the comments or Judith may have thought it was too rude (which, maybe, it was) but here's a second attempt.

This is what the covenant of security is:

British Islamists, by the British government and by UK intelligence agencies, that as long as Britain guarantees a degree of freedom to the likes of Hassan Butt [an overtly pro-terrorist Islamist], the terrorist strikes will continue to be planned within the borders of the UK but will not occur [in the UK]

Terrorists based in Britain carried out the attack Mike's Pub in Israel. Terrorists based in Britain kidnapped and murdered Daniel Pearl. Nations like Egypt and Pakistan have complained for decades about the attacks that resulted from Britain's covenant of security.

And you say that this Covenant is 'Working pretty well.." for you?

I don't believe, as Noam Chomsky does, that people who live in a democracy are responsible for every mistake their government makes. While our government loves the extremists from the Gulf like brothers, the majority of the American people do not. If you asked the average American, or even the average American leftist, how our alliance with the Sauds is working out for them, they wouldn't say that it was "working pretty well."

Only 17% of Americans favored the Dubai ports deal.

But you approve of your government's alliance with terrorism. Just wondering why?

To judge from other comment streams it can't have been rudeness that got your comment suppressed.....

Our government's "alliance with terrorism" exists only in you fevered imagination, Mary. We insist on treating terrorist murder as a subset of murder and thus a police and judicial matter rather than a military one. Tough. As for the rest, you've been reading too much Melanie Phillips.

BTW - where does Chomsky exoress the opinion you attribute to him? Just curious.

Our government's "alliance with terrorism" exists only in you fevered imagination

It exists in the fevered imaginations of British Islamists, most governments in the Middle East and South Asia and in the history books and news. Lots of fevered imaginations out there.

The American government also treated terrorist murder as a subset of murder after the first World Trade Tower attack. Unlike others, we learn from our mistakes.

where does Chomsky exoress the opinion you attribute to him? Just curious

hmm..it may have been Chomsky or it may have been some other anti-democracy nouveau-commie anarchist. Not sure, so I'll retract that.