Apparently, Sadiq Khan, the recently elected Mayor of London, and the first Muslim to be elected leader of a major Western city, has a different idea from that which many of us have about what life should be like in such places.

Khan is on a bit of a tour of the United States, and was already here last weekend when Manhattan and the Jersey shore were rocked by explosions from bombs allegedly set by Ahmad Khan Rahami. Rahami was arrested Monday in Linden, New Jersey after a shootout with police.

In speaking with reporters on Sunday, while tensions in the New York metropolitan area remained extremely high, Khan adopted what can only be described as a tone that was equal parts philosophical and resigned about the Manhattan explosion that injured 29 people. In comments reported by the Evening Standard, Khan said that it “is a reality I'm afraid that London, New York, other major cities around the world have got to be prepared for these sorts of things,” and that such attacks are now “part and parcel” of life in a big city.

They are? Since when?

While few would disagree with his sentiment that cities around the globe need to be on high alert about the acute terror threat besetting the world at the moment, his idea that this is “just the way it is” now, or whatever…seems worse than fatalistic, somehow. At the end of the day, those responsible for overseeing and safeguarding the world’s great cities should never be resigned to the idea that terror attacks in such places represent a new normal that should simply be accepted.

In fact, I can think of little that’s more obscene than just such a notion.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large