So Drudge has the big headline this morning, “Panic in Picadilly: Terror car defused in London.”

“Terror car.”

You know, it strikes me that even though this particular car bomb didn’t explode, this incident was a total and complete victory for the “terrorists,” whichever particular group is responsible for this (I’m sure it’ll be al Qaeda, whether it actually is or not). And then there was that suicide bomber “graduation tape” from Afghanistan, in which those on the tape supposedly were “sent off on their missions in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany.” This may be the first of that.

In any event, this particular attack isn’t successful. But the way the media is reporting it, it’s the next best thing. “Terror car” - the message being, BE AFRAID! And so we are afraid; I’ve no idea right now what the general attitude is in London, a city that endured the Blitz with a stiff upper lip; but were a “terror car” defused in an American city, peoplee in Lancaster County would be cringing beneath their beds.

Terrorism is so effective as a tactic specifically because we are so, er, terrorized by it. And part of fighting it, it seems to me, is to deny it that victory; to not permit yourself to go into a state of mental lockdown when something like this happens, even if the attack is successful. No one wants this country to become like Israel in terms of the number of attacks; but how does Israel keep on keeping on in the face of what would turn Americans, en masse, into a bowl of quivering jelly?

Update: Sullivan makes a good point, noting that British authorities are saying the car bomb looks similar to ones being used in Iraq; this may be seen as a consequence of the occupation. Pulling out doesn’t necessarily lessen that consequence, and may increase it in the short term; yet staying is likely to increase it over the long term, as more and more jihadists learn these “skills”:

But that is surely the deeper point. What happened in Piccadilly is part of the future, whatever we do. They will come at us in some form regardless of our actions in the Middle East. If we are unable to withstand and endure such violence, the Jihadists will only become more self-confident in rocking our nerve. …

There’s a lesson in this, and it isn’t just the need for vigilance. Stay calm and carry on.:

Update II: Matt Yglesias gets it:

Plenty of countries have long suffered some degree of terrorism — Spain, Britain, Israel — while being more-or-less pleasant, economically successful democracies whose citizens enjoy a high standard of living. These countries would, of course, like to completely eliminate their terrorism problems and rightly do make efforts in these regards. But during their better moments, at least, all of these countries recognize that the goal is to reduce the harm caused by terrorism to manageable levels, not to turn everything upside down in pursuit of a possibly chimerical “victory.”