The predictable response to the alleged terror attacks

As expected, the response of many of Britain's Muslims to the foiled terror attacks on US airlines has been to blame the Government.

It seems that whatever Britain's security forces do, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Because the last anti-terror raid carried out by the Police was an embarrassing failure, many Muslims are inclined to believe the current situation has been fabricated to divert attention away from what is happening in Lebanon (see Nick Cohen in the Observer). And even if the alleged terror attacks result in convictions, those same critics will blame them on UK foreign policy. On Saturday, an open letter signed by three Muslim MPs, three peers and 38 community groups implied that Britains foreign policy has made it vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

It seems that many of Britain's Muslims are at best in denial, and at worse intent on blackmail. As Kim Howells recently put it:

"I have no doubt that there are many issues which incite people to loath government policies but not to strap explosives to themselves and go out and murder innocent people.

"There is no way of rationalising that.

"I think it is very, very dangerous when people who call themselves community leaders make some assumption that somehow that there's a rational connection between these two things."

Britain's home secretary, John Reid has also weighed in:

"it was a dreadful misjudgement if they believe that the foreign policy of this country should be shaped in part or in whole under the threat of terrorist activity".

"No government worth its salt would stay in power in my view, and no government worth its salt, would be supported by the British people if our foreign policy or any other aspect of policy was being dictated by terrorists.

"That is not the British way, it is antithetical to our very central values. We decide things in this country by democracy, not under the threat of terrorism."

Our elected government needs to spend a little less time taking lessons from these "community leaders" and a little more time reminding them that 9/11 happened before the invasion in Afghanistan and long before the war in Iraq.