March 12, 2004
A TIME FOR CHOOSING:
A Greater Challenge? (Lee Harris, 03/12/2004, Tech Central Station)
As of this writing we do not yet know who planted the bombs that killed over two hundred people in Madrid yesterday. It may have been the Basque terrorists, or it may have been Al Qaeda. Or it may have been some other agent of radical Islam.If the terrorists turn out to be Basque, then the problem is clearly Spain's, and not ours. But if it was Al Qaeda, or one of its allies or competitors, then we may be on the verge of a frightening new development -- the emergence of catastrophic terror as a deliberate tool for manipulating, or even subverting, the democratic process in European nations, and potentially in our own as well. [...]
The terror incident in Madrid occurred only three days before the Spanish national elections -- well within the period of time when the Spanish people's nerves will still be on edge from the experience of catastrophic terror. The explosions on Thursday will still be echoing on Sunday.Perhaps this was a sheer coincidence, and the terrorists had no intention of causing people to change their minds about which candidates to vote for. But if it wasn't a coincidence, then this would compel us to recognize a potentially horrendous new development, namely, the use of catastrophic terror to "persuade" the Spanish people vote against the pro-America policy of Prime Minister Aznar's party.
If this is the case, then the Spanish election Sunday will carry a significance that will transcend the borders of Spain, and which could make it one of the most decisive elections in the short history of modern democracy. For if the Spanish people vote against Aznar's party, then it will appear to the terrorists that they have succeeded in manipulating the domestic policy of an independent nation through an act of catastrophic terror. They will have succeeded in making a nation change its mind about who is to lead them -- and that would be a setback from which our world might never recover.
Of course, if al Qaeda does start targeting elections, low turnout usually favors Republicans. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 12, 2004 5:22 PM
Now Michael Moore is REALLY going to be pissed at Al Qaeda. In the wake of 9/11 he was upset that they had to kill all those people that did not even vote for Bush. Now they are going to scare them from voting aganist him. (Then again, is tough to effectively target an ocean of red on the map when a few blue clots do the trick...)
Posted by: MG at March 12, 2004 5:46 PMI don't know what effect the bombings will have in Europe, whether they will end up being angry or scared.
I do know that regardless of what the initial reaction might be in the US, should there be more attacks, it will eventually come around to anger.
Perhaps Al-Qaeda is unaware that the US hasn't even tapped its potential for retaliation; That Iraq and Afghanistan were accomplished with what we already had laying around.
Afghanistan in particular was thrown together on the fly, with little planning and a lot of hot-dogging.
Should the US decide to get serious, Al-Qaeda has about the same chance of victory as a kid with a water pistol.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 13, 2004 1:33 AMThe Partido Popular is toast. It's obviously AQ and the Spanish were overwhelmingly against Aznar's Iraq policy anyway. What kept the PP afloat was its splendid economic record and the fact that people felt there was little use crying over spilt milk (i.e. the decision to go against the only institution Europeans still worship, the UN a year ago). Now it's obvious there is a price to pay for standing up against islamofascism and Europeans never were prepared to pay any price, except dhimmitude to the new Caliphate.
The consequences for the US in Iraq should be limited though. Those 1500 Spanish soldiers won't make the difference between victory or defeat. And once his only ally on the continent is defeated, even Tony Blair will start to realize that decent nations have no business staying in the EU.
Posted by: Peter at March 13, 2004 5:48 AMPeter:
Labour wouldn't be far behind in bailing out on the war, nor the Democrats.
Posted by: oj at March 13, 2004 6:56 AM