IF EUROPE WERE ISLAM:

Germany loses in populist politics (Jeff Gedmin, 18.05.2005, Financial Times)

Regardless of which political party gains ground in an important German state election this weekend, Germany itself is already emerging as a loser from the populist politics surrounding the poll. The ruling coalition of Gerhard Schroder, the chancellor, faces a crucial test in North Rhine-Westphalia this Sunday. Mr Schroder's Social Democrats have governed the key industrial state for 39 years and an electoral defeat there - which seems likely, according to polls - will be seen as a rejection of the government's reform agenda.

That is the least of it. For the second time in three years, Mr Schroder's
party has cultivated for short-term electoral gains a crude and dangerous debate
about the country′s fundamental orientation. The first time Mr Schroder did this
was in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, when he reached for the
anti-American card. It helped him win national elections. But it was startling
to see how quickly political tactics turned to passion and spiralled out of
control. One of Mr Schroder's cabinet ministers compared the US president to
Adolf Hitler. A leading Social Democratic parliamentarian said the US ambassador
in Berlin was no different from a Soviet ambassador. Still another official
insisted that the US was trying to impose its own "Brezhnev doctrine" on Europe.
Worst of all, such demagoguery found resonance with the German public. A writer for Der Spiegel told me to ignore the anti-American covers the magazine was running at the time - editors were just trying to connect with their 1m readers, he explained. In truth, after that election, the German public would have needed a concerted education campaign about why the transatlantic relationship should matter at all. Alas, such a campaign never took place and the twin viruses of anti-Americanism and national-pacifism that Mr Schroder helped stir still fester
in the German body politic.

Similarly, Germany today needs an honest national discussion after its recent
capitalism debate. But, sadly, Mr Schroder's SPD has again tapped into populist
sentiment. One sees young people in Berlin wearing T-shirts reading, "abolish
capitalism". The particular bogeyman this time is foreign, especially US
investors. A German trade union magazine with a readership of 2m recently
portrayed an insect, holding a US stars-and-stripes hat, with the headline, "US
Companies in Germany: Bloodsuckers". All this was set off by Franz Muntefering,
the SPD's chairman, who stoked anti-capitalist passions with his jibe that
foreign hedge funds and other investors were like "locusts" feeding off
vulnerable German workers. Like the rantings of US film-maker Michael Moore,
this sort of thing sells well in mainstream German society, and 70 per cent of
the country responded positively to the SPD's message.

Which raises an awkward question for Realists: given the rising anti-liberalism and anti-Americanism in Europe, are we faced with just two solutions to the European problem? The Bush administration can continue to insist on more democracy in Europe, even if this ultimately means the return of socialism and the dissemination of virulent anti-Americanism from one end of the region to the other. Or else the administration can do a complete about-face on democracy: discourage the spread of popular government in Europe, and be prepared to back friendly authoritarian governments.

MORE:
Spain’s “Terrorgate”?: Investigating 3/11 (Frank Gaffney, 5/18/05, National Review)

It has long been understood that the Spanish socialists shamelessly exploited the March 11, 2004, terrorist attacks in Madrid’s train station for political advantage. They did so with palpable disregard for a frightening fact: The far-reaching geostrategic repercussions of that incident — which vaporized the ruling conservative party’s electoral lead just days before the polling — gave those seeking similar results elsewhere every incentive to engage in violence against other democracies’ electoral processes.

But what if the perpetrators were neither Islamofacists, as the winning socialists immediately asserted, nor the Basque terrorist organization known as ETA, as the government of José Maria Aznar initially (and fatally) assumed?

On May 16, the Madrid daily El Mundo published a remarkable editorial that draws upon the paper’s ongoing investigation and contains information potentially as explosive as the 3/11 attacks themselves: El Mundo suggests that, almost immediately after the 12 bombs went off in one of the city’s busiest train stations, some in the Spanish police force fabricated evidence, then swiftly hyped it to the domestic and international press. The object seems to have been to support the oppositions’ claims that Islamists angry over the government’s support for the war in Iraq were responsible for the attacks.

At worst, the information uncovered by El Mundo could mean that the deadly bombing was actually perpetrated with the complicity of the same Spanish police bomb squad, Tedax, that was subsequently charged with investigating the crime.

Either way, if the leads published in recent days pan out, it would appear that Spain’s 2004 elections were stolen by terrorists, alright. But the terrorist operation that brought the socialists to power may have been an inside job — in effect, a coup perpetrated by some of the same authorities who are responsible for preventing terror. Explosive stuff, if true. But all preliminary and speculative right now.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 19, 2005 12:00 AM