a3ir
16-03-2004, 08:46
Al Qaeda's Wish List By DAVID BROOKS Published: March 16, 2004 am trying not to think harshly of the Spanish. They have suffered a grievous blow, and it was crazy to go ahead with an election a mere three days after the Madrid massacre. Nonetheless, here is what seems to have happened: The Spanish government was conducting policies in Afghanistan and Iraq that Al Qaeda found objectionable. A group linked to Al Qaeda murdered 200 Spaniards, claiming that the bombing was punishment for those policies. Some significant percentage of the Spanish electorate was mobilized after the massacre to shift the course of the campaign, throw out the old government and replace it with one whose policies are more to Al Qaeda's liking. What is the Spanish word for appeasement? There are millions of Americans, in and out of government, who believe the swing Spanish voters are shamefully trying to seek a separate peace in the war on terror. I'm resisting that conclusion, because I don't know what mix of issues swung the Spanish election during those final days. But I do know that reversing course in the wake of a terrorist attack is inexcusable. I don't care what the policy is. You do not give terrorists the chance to think that their methods work. You do not give them the chance to celebrate victories. When you do that, you make the world a more dangerous place, for others and probably for yourself. We can be pretty sure now that this will not be the last of the election-eve massacres. Al Qaeda will regard Spain as a splendid triumph. After all, how often have murderers altered a democratic election? And having done it once, why stop now? Why should they not now massacre Italians, Poles, Americans and Brits? Al Qaeda has now induced one nation to abandon the Iraqi people. Yesterday the incoming Spanish prime minister indicated he would pull his troops out of Iraq unless the U.N. takes control. The terrorists sought this because they understand, even if many in Europe do not, that Iraq is a crucial battleground in the war on terror. They understand what a deadly threat the new democratic constitution is to their cause. As Abu Musab al-Zarqawi wrote in his famous memo, where there is democracy, there is no pretext for murder. Where there is liberty, there is no chance for totalitarian theocracy. Perhaps Al Qaeda will win new recruits as a result of this triumph. But even if it does destroy Afghanistan and Iraq, it still will not stop. Retreating nations like Spain will still not be safe. For Al Qaeda's mission is not about one country or another. It is existential. "You love life and we love death," the purported terrorists said in the videotape found in Madrid. There will be other aftershocks from the Spanish election. The rift between the U.S. and Europe will grow wider. Now all European politicians will know that if they side with America on controversial security threats, and terrorists strike their nation, they might be blamed by their own voters. Many Americans and many Europeans will stare at each other in the weeks ahead with disbelieving eyes. For today more than any other, it really does appear that Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus. If a terrorist group attacked the U.S. three days before an election, does anyone doubt that the American electorate would rally behind the president or at least the most aggressively antiterror party? Does anyone doubt that Americans and Europeans have different moral and political cultures? Yesterday the chief of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, told Italy's La Stampa, "It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists." Does he really think capitulation or negotiation works better? Can you imagine John Kerry or George Bush saying that? Nor is America itself without blame. Where was our State Department? Why hasn't Colin Powell spent the past few years crisscrossing Europe so that voters there would at least know the arguments for the liberation of Iraq, would at least have some accurate picture of Americans, rather than the crude cowboy stereotype propagated by the European media? Why does the Bush administration make it so hard for its friends? Why is it so unable to reach out? This is a watershed event. It will change how Al Qaeda thinks about the world. It will change how Europeans see the world. It will constrain American policy for years to come.