By Jorge Amador on 10.27.04 @ 12:05AM
Spain is learning that the Madrid bombings had nothing to do with Iraq.
Did the March 11 railway bombings in Madrid have anything to do
with Spain's participation in the Iraqi reconstruction? Terrorist
propaganda notwithstanding, the facts suggest that they did not.
Events both before and since indicate that the bombings are part of
a broader campaign, and that withdrawing from Iraq has not enhanced
the Spanish people's security.
There's no question that the attacks were timed brilliantly for
greatest effect -- three days before Spain's national election.
Considering that the modus operandi did not fit al Qaeda
operatives' usual pattern of self-immolation, at first there was
plausible reason to believe that homegrown extremists may have been
responsible. But eventually the atrocities came to be universally
viewed as retribution for Spain's presence in Iraq. This line of
thinking would seem to be supported by a videotape which,
curiously, was left in a trash bin near the largest mosque in
Madrid and found the day before the election. On the tape,
according to the Associated Press, an Arabic speaker claimed that
the bombings were carried out, "to punish Spain's backing of the
U.S.-led war in Iraq."
But were they, really? The trouble with this argument is that
the terrorist focus on Spain both precedes the presence of Spanish
troops in Iraq, and continues after their removal following the
election of a new government.
In May 2003, Islamist fanatics bombed five sites -- among them,
notably, the Spanish social club Casa de España and a
Spanish restaurant -- in Casablanca, Morocco, killing dozens of
people. Considering that Spanish troops would not arrive in the
Middle East for another three months, these attacks could not have
been motivated by Spain's "occupation" of Iraq. Moreover,
investigators believe that the Casablanca blasts were planned by
some of the same agents who carried out the Madrid bombings; and
one of the surviving Madrid perpetrators now stands indicted for
taking part in the planning for the September 11 attacks in the
United States. Iraq is irrelevant.
If the terrorists had intended simply to punish the Spanish
people for going to Iraq, then, presumably, the voters' election of
a more pliant government which promised to leave that country
should have satisfied them. It had the opposite effect. On April 2
-- some three weeks after the Socialist Party's upset win -- an
undetonated explosive device was found beneath the tracks on the
Madrid-Seville high-speed line. Then, in a handwritten April 3 note
faxed to the Spanish daily ABC, a group calling itself
"Ansar al-Qaida Europe" claimed responsibility and upped the ante,
now demanding that Spain withdraw not only from Iraq, but also from
Afghanistan.
In addition, the terror suspects who, surrounded by police,
brought down their apartment building in a Madrid suburb on the
same day evidently were planning to follow up on the horror of
March 11. Ángel Acebes, the interior minister at the time,
noted that "They were going to keep on attacking because some of
the explosives were prepared, packed, and connected to
detonators."
Despite widespread public opposition to sending troops to Iraq,
numerous opinion polls in the weeks prior to the election showed
the governing Popular Party running 5-8 points ahead of the
Socialists. Although there is little credible evidence to link the
March 11 bombings to the situation in Iraq, the psychological
connection of the Socialist victory to the attacks is undeniable.
Like former boxer Roberto Durán, who once used a certain
inglorious phrase to quit a fight, a certain swing group of Spanish
voters cried, "¡No más!"
For their pacifist pleadings they were soon rewarded with more
swings to the jaw; and in the wake of these the new president,
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, speeded up the removal
of his country's troops from Iraq, as if that would do any good. On
October 18, Spanish police arrested eight more Islamists, in
response to what Agence France-Presse reported was a plan to strike
the country's National Court with an 1,100-pound truck bomb. But
the troops are long since gone -- why is this still going on?
By and large, anti-war folks are nice people: they don't like to
meddle in other nations' affairs. But it is a grievous mistake to
think that if we'd just leave others alone, ipso facto those others
would leave us alone too. Were it that simple, Attila the Hun and
Genghis Khan would have led quiet careers in horse husbandry.
Fouad Ajami noted in the Wall Street Journal last March
22 that "Of all the larger countries of the EU [European Union],
Spain has been the most sympathetic to Palestinian claims.... With
the sole exception of Greece, Spain has shown the deepest reserve
toward Israel." Our sympathy and reserve are not what the Islamists
seek. As Saudi Arabia's leaders have discovered, even the adoption
of strict shari'a law and sponsorship of fundamentalist Koranic
schools around the globe are not nearly enough to placate the
jihadists. Only complete submission to their ideology will do; to
believe otherwise is a dangerous fantasy.
topics:
Islam, Law, Iraq, Israel, European Union, NATO
