This one is written in response on Calpundit's thread Why the Socialists Won....Part Two
First, let me reject the calumny that 'the right wing' has no sympathy for the human tragedy of the bombing unless the political results are to our liking. That's not only false, it's somewhat dehumanizing and a low blow. If you're human, you weep for the dead, no matter the politics. Shame on those who wish to take that away no matter what their political stripe.Posted by TMLutas at March 20, 2004 03:28 PMNow irrespective of the song and dance that everybody puts on the fact is that Al Queda is sending messages across the network to lay off operations in Spain post election because Spain is to be rewarded for voting right unless they backtrack and start acting wrongly, wrongly being identified as staying in Iraq and cooperating with the US in the War on Terror. No matter how the spanish intended to vote, how Al Queda perceived the vote is largely how the US right wing has been spinning things.
Al Queda was in a major jam. It had not had any major western successes since 9/11 and was killing an awful lot of muslims compared to its infidel body count. The challenge that muslims against Al Queda could throw at them was 'sure you took down a few buildings but you stirred up the worst hornets nest there is' with the result being the War on Terror.
Now Al Queda is claiming they have changed a government and the new government is more to their liking. They have not only proved their viability but proved that they can achieve their political goals. Irrespective of what goes on in the heads of spaniards, this is the reality in the islamic world and it is a reality that will help Al Queda recruit more agents, recruit more bombers, and the cost will be an increased death toll.
Intentional or not, the Spanish electorate sent a message that had effects on the WoT and those effects will be positive for the Islamists and negative for those of us who want to defend civilization and human decency. You can argue that the signers of the Kellog-Briand pact that outlawed war did not intend to create an intellectual climate that enabled the rise of tyrants and emboldened war mongers but thats the way things played out.
Spain made a major error. They're not alone. The US made lots of errors of this type over the past two decades plus and those errors spanned both parties, Democrat and Republican. We might have hoped that Spain would have learned from our mistakes in Tehran, Beirut, Saudi Arabia, Iraq (1991), Somalia, and the rest of the US' feckless litany of shame, but they didn't. Right wingers are understandably upset by it. Hopefully the Socialists will either straighten out or the government will fall (it's a minority government) over the terrorist issue, we'll see.