By David Rieff/International Herald Tribune/July 22, 2007
When terrorists tried to blow up civilians in London and Glasgow, Gordon Brown, the new British prime minister, responded in his own distinctive way.
What had just been narrowly averted, he said, was not a new jihadist act of war but instead a criminal act. As if to underscore the point, Brown instructed his ministers that the phrase “war on terror” was no longer to be used and, indeed, that officials were no longer even to employ the word “Muslim” in connection with the terrorism crisis. (more…)
