Reading around the wondrous interweb, I have found a few interesting bits on the Madrid Bombings and the subsequent victory of the socialists.
Mark Steyn offers this:
For the non-complacent, the question is fast becoming whether "civilised society" in much of Europe is already too "undermined". Last Friday, for a brief moment, it looked as if a few brave editorialists on the Continent finally grasped that global terrorism is a real threat to Europe, and not just a Bush racket. But even then they weren't proposing that the Continent should rise up and prosecute the war, only that they be less snippy in their carping from the sidelines as America gets on with it. Spain was Washington's principal Continental ally, and what does that boil down to in practice? 1,300 troops. That's fewer than what the New Hampshire National Guard is contributing.
Its disturbing to that even our allies are not exactly chipping in for the big win. Remind me, why do we bother trying to get the support and help of the "world community" when it's still us holding the bag and paying the tab?
Distinguished Miltary Theorist Edward Luttwak has a fascinating article over at the Globe and Mail:
It is a matter of record that Osama bin Laden and other Islamists identified Spain as a priority target years before the Iraq war. Under Muslim law, no land conquered by Islam may legitimately come under non-Muslim rule. For the fanatics, Spain is still El Andalus, which must be reconquered for Islam by immigration and intimidation. So even if the bombs were placed by Islamists, the claim that Spain was only attacked because of Mr. Aznar's support for the Iraq war is utterly false.
Even if hard evidence were to be found that ETA was responsible after all, it would be too late: The Spanish political community has failed the test of terrorism it has bowed down to the violence of the few, allowing them to dictate their will to the millions. There are bound to be serious consequences, because openly demonstrated weakness always invites further attack.
For one thing, Spain still rules the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the North African coast, which Islamists view as Christian colonies on Muslim soil. Having seen what bombs can do, they might well be tempted to see if a few more bombs can induce the Spanish to surrender the two enclaves. No democracy ever found safety in surrendering to aggressions, large or small.
Wretchard from the Belmont Club chimes in with Dark Night of Spirit. He offers some troublesome thoughts on the strategic implications of the realignment in Spain.
The appeasement which so amuses the French may not be so funny when played by the Spaniards. For Spain, in concert with America and France, shared the watch of North Africa. And since that is where many Al Qaeda have moved, as the Madrid train bombing carried out by North Africans proves, Europe will find their relative danger increased far more greatly than the Americans, who can comfortably lose the Spanish contingent in Iraq. The loss of a solid Spain, while an annoyance to America is a catastrophe for Europe. Iraq is far from America but Spain is close to France.
In the end, the very nature of the War on Terror ultimately means that Europe needs America more than America needs Europe. The global jihad means that attacks on Europe can be planned and launched from geographical locations far beyond the reach of their defense forces. That could be ignored while Europe remained convinced that it would not be targeted. But now the doubt grows. And if the contingency eventuates, neither France nor Spain have the mobility or the means to pursue their foes into the uttermost reaches of Central Asia, the deserts of Africa or the teeming stews of the Southwest Asia. That deficiency can only be addressed by a sustained program of European defense spending --- and it will not. Zapatero has cast away the very thing that he may need and which he can neither afford nor beg.
Eurosocialism, by hitching its wagon to the fortunes of militant Islam has put itself at it's mercy. That is the definition of surrender, whose fine print the Continent will soon be familiar with. A disarmed, politically correct and supine Eurosocialist society can only exist where other free men guard their borders. By dismissing the guardians and capitulating to the jihadis the Eurosocialists have struck at the very root of their own existence. Lenin once remarked that capitalists would sell him the noose he would use to hang them. But that was before Stalin poisoned him.
And this piece from Blogcritics
And regarding the Iraq accusations, does anyone notice the screaming, grand irony of al Qaeda claiming that their justification for mass murder in Spain is the Spanish government's support for the war in Iraq? I thought al Qaeda and Iraq had nothing to do with each other. I thought Iraq had nothing to do with the War on Terror.
I thought al Qaeda's excuse for blowing the shit out of thousands of innocent people around the world was to further the cause of extreme Islamic fundamentalism: the war in Iraq, from their perspective, only aided the cause of Islamic fundamentalism since Islamic fundmentalism, and any other kind of religious political expression, was ruthlessly supressed by Saddam. Al Qaeda should be damned cheerful about the removal of Saddam and should be thanking any country that helped make it so, not blowing up its trains.
Terrorists cannot be appeased, negotiated with, reasoned with, or have their attention deflected elsewhere as a matter of any governmental policy: the only appropriate governmental policy is direct confrontation, unambiguous condemnation and aggressive pursuit and elimination of terrorists and their accomplices and enablers. Anything else is giving in to fear and wishful thinking.
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