On Christmas Day in 2009, a small fire broke out on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. The crew put it out with an extinguisher and blankets. The plane landed safely. Two people were injured: a Nigerian who had caused the fire by trying to detonate 80g of explosive hidden in his underpants, and a Dutch passenger who tackled him. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed in his objective of bringing down the aircraft. But he succeeded in part of his al-Qaida inspired mission: the unnerving of America. By the next morning, new ritual humiliations awaited those wishing to fly to the US. TV news channels fuelled the panic with round-the-clock coverage – yet all the important facts are in the paragraph above.

America's frenzied, alarmist response is hardly becoming for the most powerful nation on earth. The lack of any sense of proportion simply serves to enhance the status of a terrorist group which is dispersed, quite small and cannot possibly threaten US sovereignty unless Americans connive in their own defeat. With a panicked, politicised response to an event that killed no one, they are doing precisely that.

The threat from terrorism is serious – not only because of the physical damage it can do but also because it challenges the authority and competence of government. Governments rightly place high demands on intelligence and security services to guard citizens against that threat.

But the threat must also be kept in perspective. According to the US National Counterterrorism Centre, during 2008 33 US citizens were killed around the world in terrorist attacks, including 21 in Iraq. Since 2004, four have died in the US as a result of terrorism. Since the 2001 attacks, other extremist plots have been uncovered. If they had come to fruition, they would have killed Americans. If the "shoe bomber", Richard Reid, had been successful in 2001, 197 people would probably have been killed. Abdulmutallab could have killed 289 people. However, none succeeded.

By contrast, in 2006 alone, 18,573 people were victims of homicide in the US. Traffic-related injuries resulted in 43,664 deaths. Firearms accounted for 30,896, while 21,647 died as a result of falls.

No doubt al-Qaida would like to cause deaths on this scale. The many failed plots show that this kind of success is very difficult for terrorists to achieve. But success can be achieved in other ways as well: the response is in a sense more important than the attack. We should never forget that terrorism is as much as anything an act of theatre.

Bringing down the World Trade Centre did not destroy the US economy. But it did provoke George Bush to declare a "global war on terror". The huge expense incurred in pursuing this effort has arguably done more damage to the economy than Osama bin Laden could have hoped for. Nobody can forget the horror of 9/11, and it was inevitable that a government faced with such an outrage would respond in extreme fashion. Hindsight is easy, but if Bush had placed more emphasis on bringing those responsible to justice rather than on declaring an unwinnable "war" against an undefined enemy, things might have turned out very differently.

The most important consideration here should be what will be most effective in combating extremist terrorism in the long term. It is surely not inspiring for radicalised people with the potential for violent action to see terrorists tried in ordinary criminal courts and sentenced to long prison terms. This was definitely not the martyrdom they had in mind. But it surely is inspiring to them to see terrorists treated as a special class of prisoners to be held by the military, imprisoned without trial and tortured. This is the kind of treatment that makes jihadists believe that they can indeed be the fighters for a cause they aspire to be.

The abandonment of ordinary standards of criminal justice in cases of terrorism can thus be argued to be counterproductive. On top of this, there is the argument that democratic values of freedom and justice are the western world's best advertisement. Departures from such values have damaged America's international reputation. The oft-quoted saying of Benjamin Franklin is worth repeating: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

People in the UK have recently been sporting bags, mugs and clothing bearing the phrase Keep Calm and Carry On, from rediscovered posters produced by the British government in 1939 for use in the event of German invasion. While this is now almost a caricature of the famed stiff-upper-lip approach, it is a message that holds a lesson in the face of inevitable terrorist attacks. Some resilience is needed. In its absence, terrorists achieve their objective.