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Via Cato Institute, here's an excellent post by Bruce Schneier, one of the world's foremost security experts, on our illogical and counterproductive approach to the "war on terror."The highlight:

The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want[...]

Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we're terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists' actions, and increase the effects of their terror[...]

Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed.

At some point, one that I hope is in the not-too-distant future, we'll come to realize just how counterproductive most of our efforts anti-terror efforts have been since 9/11. To change, to recognize both our mistakes and the appropriate ways to correct them, is going to require real leadership. Until then, the unfortunate truth is that we will most likely to continue to give the terrorists precisely what they want.