Laughing at Terror

It strikes me that there are two ways of doing this. One, which we discuss extensively here, is to claim that the terrorists don't exist. The "Muslims in a cave couldn't do this," response.

The second way is illustrated by this article by Gwynne Dyer, which basically characterizes the terrorists as bumblers and dopes:

As terrorists go, this was The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. One of the would-be London bombers on June 29 drove erratically down Haymarket - presumably affected by the fumes from the gas cylinders and petrol containers that were the heart of his makeshift car-bomb - before crashing into a garbage bin, getting out and running away.

Another parked his explosives-packed car illegally, so it was towed away. The third attack was at Glasgow Airport the following day, but nobody was hurt except one of the attackers, who set himself on fire.

Not hard to predict what Dyer would have said had the 9-11 plot been foiled. "Could they have been anymore obvious about it? I mean, they didn't want to learn how to land or takeoff, they just wanted to know how to fly a plane well enough to crash it into building? And they expected to take over airplanes armed only with short knives and box-cutters?"

These things seem risible until they succeed. Remember the failed July 21, 2005 bombing attempts in the London tubes? That one might have seemed funny, had it not followed by two weeks the carnage of 7/7.

Never one to miss a trend, Paul Watson over at Prison Planet chimes in:

While the majority of Brits are more interested in putting up shelves than some retards setting fire to a car, the media has (sic) deserted common sense for good and welcomed another opportunity to terrify the public, providing terror where there was none and thereby facilitating the amateur jihadist's agenda by hyping a peril that simply doesn't exist.

Hat Tip: JREF Forum member Graham 2001.

Update: Our buddy Rob Breakenridge points out in the comments that Dyer has previously written a great column panning loose Change, so he's not completely bananas on terrorism.

In normal times you wouldn't waste breath arguing with people who fall for this kind of rubbish, but the makers of "Loose Change" claim that their film has already been seen by over 100 million people, and looking at my e-mail in-tray I believe them. It is a real problem, because by linking their fantasies about 9/11 to the Bush administration's deliberate deception of the American people in order to gain support for the invasion of Iraq, they bring discredit on the truth and the nonsense alike.

You almost wonder if they are secretly working for the Bush administration.

Heheh, you may recall that was the conclusion of the South Park episode on the "Truthers".