It was not immediately clear who was responsible -- such events have been misattributed before.

But Britain has been one of America’s most stalwart allies in the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq that have followed the radical Islamic attack on America of Sept. 11, 2001. The coordinated multiple attack fits the pattern of previous actions by those Muslim murderers, and there is one further, very strong reason to believe the attacks may have been engineered to weaken British popular resolve to continue standing by their American ally.

That reason being: It’s worked before.

On March 11, 2004 -- the half-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in America -- a series of 10 coordinated commuter train bombings during the height of the rush hour killed 191 people and wounded 1,800 more in Madrid, Spain.

The attacks came just a day before the Spanish national elections.

Although the Aznar government initially tried to blame Basque separatists, the focus quickly shifted to extremist Islamist groups. Two Moroccans and a Tunisian blew themselves up to avoid capture after being surrounded in an apartment in Leganes, south of Madrid, on April 3, and the explosives were found to match those used in the train bombings.

In a videotape delivered to a Madrid television station, a man speaking Arabic with a Moroccan accent and wearing Arabic dress told Spaniards the attacks were “a response to your collaboration with the criminal Bush and his allies. This is a response to the crimes that you have caused in the world, and specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there will be more, if God wills it. You love life and we love death, which gives an example of what the Prophet Muhammad said. If you don’t stop your injustices, more and more blood will flow. ...”

And how did the Spanish people respond?

Until the attacks, Prime Minister Aznar’s People’s Party appeared likely to win a third consecutive term in power. But on March 14, Spain’s Socialists scored a dramatic upset, unseating conservatives stung by charges they provoked the Madrid terror by supporting the U.S-led war in Iraq.

Incoming prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero pledged to bring home the 1,300 Spanish troops stationed in Iraq, and promptly did so.

Were those 1,300 troops -- basically crossing guards assigned to a “tranquil” Shiite agricultural area -- vital to the military mission in Iraq? Of course not. Rather, their role was to symbolize European solidarity against the tactics of terror.

But because the vacillating Spanish populace decided to squeal like rabbits and dive for their holes the moment they were called upon to show some resolve in the face of indiscriminate Wahabi bloodlust, al-Qaida and their allies were able to turn faint-hearted Spain into a potent symbol of just the opposite -- how much could be accomplished among the lily-livered Europeans with just a little “love of death.”

Appeasement: It always brings us back to a crisp autumn day on the Polish frontier, doesn’t it?

Fortunately, it’s likely these babbling medieval throwbacks will find the nation that stood alone against Hitler in 1940 (while collaborationists in “neutral” Spain were studiously looking the other way as Nazi U-boats resupplied in their waters) are made of sterner stuff.

While it’s highly unlikely the tolerant and cosmopolitan Brits will do any random roundups of people of Arabic extraction (nor should they), they may now defy political correctness sufficient to (oh, the horror) pay calls upon and closely question some Arabic non-citizens, whose freedom of movement around the open city of London almost certainly facilitated Thursday’s abomination.

(In contrast, let us imagine for a moment a Western female operative in a miniskirt and carrying a Bible being allowed to place a bomb near any significant target in Iran or Saudi Arabia.)

Of course, no one wants another Manzanar. But how long must we wait for such common sense to take root here, where our TSA goons absurdly deprive old ladies of their knitting needles and nursing moms of their bottled breast milk and require millions of Americans to take off their sneakers each week -- but run shrieking in terror from the mere suggestion of singling out for polite questioning members of the one group whose appearance and accent provide such handy travelling camouflage for those who would destroy us, our economy, and our civilization?