The quote in post #6 is not exact. I was careful to pick an image with no quotation marks.
But it absolutely expresses Khan‘s opinion on the matter. The actual quote is as a long one:
“Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you got to support the security services.”
What does he mean by “these things”? He’s talking about terrorist attacks. As I see it, Khan is saying there’s always going to be terrorism in a big city (NYC, London, etc.). So deal with it.
So, yeah. I stand by my post. Your mileage may vary.
Side point: There were no major terrorist attacks in big cities say, 50 years ago. Funny how Khan didn’t touch on that.
The context was an unscripted interview on a New York radio station, where he happened to be visiting the day after the Manhattan trash bin bombs. For a responsible official to say that, at a time when such attacks were cropping up all over the place post-9/11, constant vigilance about the risk is essential, was surely simply a statement of common sense. It’s the omission of the ‘vigilant’ clause in the misreporting which completely changed the tone.