Yes I did see Power of Nightmares and Fahrenheit 9/11, etc, etc. Personally I take a critical view of the industry of fear created by and supportive of the US and to some extent the UK government. Though I also take a critical view of the industry of cynicism too (entertaining as it is). To suggest you are informed and imply I and others are overly fearful due to a lack of information is at best naive and at worst patronising.

The potential that exists in terms of extremity and severity in Islamist terrorism is enormously worse than that threat presented by the IRA. Simply the weapon of suicide bombing is several degrees worse due to the difficulty in preventing it.

Why is the concept of an existing WW3 silly? New wars always take a form unlike those before it and a form that could not have been predicted. What if WW3, instead of being an inter-continetal nuclear war (as we expected when we were kids) turned out to be a very very long, very sporadic world-wide battle between Nations and Religious (ie. non-national) terrorists. Of course I'm in no way suggesting this type of war is comparable in terms of lives lost or societies decimated regards WW1 or WW2, but a single chem bio or nuclear incident in a western city will change our society forever and may put into perspective what I am saying.  Personally I expect this type of WMD incident  to be inevitable in the next 10 years.

The use of encryption and the internet for the exchange of secret information makes planning and execution of this type of large incident far more likely.  The IRA were a clearly identifiable organisation with clear geographic allegance and very clearly understood objectives and objections. Islamist terrorism is a different animal in terms of geography, means and objectives and has already shown a much greater determination and ambition than the IRA could ever have aspired to.

I am a liberal at heart, but having worked on a project for the Emergency Planning agency I heard enough commentary during meetings with Home Office staff to convince me the apparent threat is a real one, albeit one which is being played quite carefully by the UK Gov to its advantage.

Just take the callous horror of the Madrid bombings, incidents like that and of course the bombings and planned bombings in London will substantially undermine our society if the are allowed to happen. I see absolutely no evidence that taking a liberal approach will somehow appease the Islamist who wants to attack Western targets and I see plenty of evidence that such terrorists will attack soft targets in order to spread fear and terror.

I do believe new measures are required, though I also fear that new measures will be abused by the Police - there is already plenty of evidence that certain Police forces are exploiting the recently implemented anti-terror meaures simply to stop and search people without cause for suspicion. Its easy to read the Observer and John Pilger and Michael Moore (things I do too) and then take the ultra cynical view having no responsibilities or causes to make decisions (something I dont do).