German Terrorists, Irish Terrorists, Muslim Terrorists

Some deluded young girl, with her head full of militant islamic faith, was jailed for life the other day for trying to kill her British MP. She stabbed him in the stomach because he voted for the Iraq war.

Only 21, she'll have lots of time to figure out what a foolish thing she did in the name of 'religion'.

At 81, I've seen a few terrorist movements come and go. I've concluded that every society is going to have some disgruntled minority or other which decides its principles give it the right to go round killing other people.

In the second world war the nazis decided they had the right to terrorise German jews. They started out going round kicking jewish citizens and smashing their shop windows. They got so much support for their thuggery from the German population as a whole that they grew from what might have stayed a relatively powerless and German national terrorist movement into an all-out effort at world domination. My generation, along with the Americans and other allies, had no option but to fight them.

Then we had the IRA. That was different from a terrorist movement that wants to dominate in that the Irish nationalists didn't want to take over Britain or dominate the British. They wanted to get Britain and British soldiers out of northern Ireland. Once the leaders Martin McGuiness and Jerry Adams became elected politicians speaking out against violence, it was predictable that a new bunch would start up, feeling they have the right to blow up people going about their daily lives.

And then we got the islamic terrorists. They do want to dominate. Like Hitler and the nazis, they want world domination. And like Hitler and the nazis, they think they're superior to everyone else.

I suppose I've become philosophical about these things since I think they'll always be with us. The human brain gets deluded very easily it seems. Human judgement and objectivity are terribly delicate things. Some causes are of course worth fighting for. Others are entirely unjustified attempts to force intolerance on others. There'll always be tussles over values and behaviour. Islamic terrorism is just the latest attempt to replace tolerance with intolerance and freedom with coercion.