From the WSJ Opinion Archives
The
Terrorists Win One
The war on terror suffered a setback yesterday when Spain elected a Socialist
government, apparently in response to last week's terror attacks in Madrid.
The Socialists and the terrorists are on the same side, at least as far as the liberation of Iraq goes. "We declare our responsibility for what happened in Madrid, just two and a half years after the attacks on New York and Washington," says a video purportedly from an al Qaeda spokesman. "It's an answer to your collaboration with the criminals Bush and his allies. This is like an answer to the crimes that you have caused in the world and specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan and there will be more if God desires."
CNN quotes the prime minister-elect, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, as saying, "I think Spain's participation in the war has been a total error." Zapatero still vows to withdraw his country's 1,300 troops from Iraq on June 30, unless the U.N. takes military command. (As we noted Friday, Zapatero is one of the few foreign leaders to have openly endorsed John Kerry.)
"Al-Qaeda or its affiliates have toppled a democratic government for the first time,'' Bloomberg News quotes Bernard Walschots, a Dutch economist, as saying, in a note to investors. "This may have dramatic implications for the Western democracies.'' The ruling Popular Party, a staunch U.S. ally, had been ahead in pre-3/11 polls.
The Weekend Australian reports that some 1,000 antigovernment demonstrators gathered in Madrid Saturday "to blame [last] week's bombs in the capital on the government's unpopular decision to support the US war on Iraq." The Associated Press interviews Spanish voters and finds this sentiment was reflected at the ballot box:
Some voters were angry at outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, accusing him of making Spain a target for Islamic extremists because of his support for the Iraq war, despite the opposition of most Spaniards. Aznar sent 1,300 Spanish troops to Iraq after the conflict and 11 have died.
''I wasn't planning to vote, but I am here today because the Popular Party is responsible for murders here and in Iraq,'' said Ernesto Sanchez-Gey, 48, who voted in Barcelona.
The urge to appease wasn't the only factor at work. The government was overly eager to pin the blame on Basques rather than Islamists; Agence France-Presse reports that Foreign Minister Ana Palacio "ordered all Spanish ambassadors worldwide to use every possible opportunity to 'confirm ETA's involvement' in the attacks." For reasons we don't quite understand, an ETA attack was supposed to have been good for the ruling party, an al Qaeda attack for the Socialists, and it did not inspire confidence that the ruling party was so quick to draw a conclusion that would be politically advantageous but was certainly unwarranted and probably incorrect.
It's too early to tell if al Qaeda's tactical victory in Spain will turn out to be a strategic one as well. An article in the Financial Times is encouraging:
Spain's new Socialist government will be quickly put to the test as Ireland makes a big push for the European Union to share more intelligence, beef up co-ordination on security issues and make fresh efforts to stem the flow of funds to banned terrorist organisations in the wake of last week's attacks in Spain that killed over 200 civilians. . . .
The issue of counter-terrorism issues has been catapulted on to next week's summit agenda, instead of the June summit.
Diplomats said member states were in no mood to suggest that only those countries that supported the US-led war in Iraq were vulnerable. "Terrorism affects every country. Terrorist networks use countries in which to 'sleep,' " said a senior EU diplomat.
On the other hand, Agence France-Presse quotes Romano Prodi, head of the European Commission, as saying, "It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists," and, "Terrorism is infinitely more powerful than a year ago." Infinitely?
Still, Spain's vote for appeasement may turn out to be a lagging indicator; perhaps 3/11 will turn out to cause Europeans to wise up, even if Spanish voters were not quick enough to do so.
The election outcome has had a demoralizing effect on pro-war bloggers. "It's a spectacular result for Islamist terrorism, and a chilling portent of Europe's future," writes Andrew Sullivan. John Ellis calls it "the most depressing political development since 9/11, bar none," and says his "assertion that 3/11 would engage the EU in the War on Terror as never before was proven wrong in record time."
Buck up, guys. Every war has casualties and setbacks, and this isn't the end of the world. If we mope, the terrorists will have won. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss, stop wringing the hands that should wring bin Laden's neck!
Kerry's Deadly Doctrine
What lessons can America learn from 3/11? One is that the Kerry
Doctrine--treating terrorism as a "law enforcement" matter rather
than a war--kills. The Los Angeles Times reports that one of the Moroccan suspects
arrested after last week's bombings had long been a known al Qaeda associate:
Spanish police searched the Madrid apartment of Jamal Zougam in August 2001, according to investigators. The search revealed that Zougam, 30, associated with key figures in a Madrid Al Qaeda cell whose alleged leader, Imad Eddin Barakat, was jailed three months later on suspicion of helping plot the attacks in the United States that year, according to Spanish court documents.
"A high-ranking Spanish investigator said Zougam had not been arrested during the 2001 crackdown because he was not implicated in specific crimes," the Times reports. Now, of course, he has been. The cost of waiting now stands at 201 lives.
The new prime minister's stated determination to bring Spain into the axis of weasels also underscores the dangers of making a fetish of multilateralism, another Kerry fallacy. Eugene Volokh makes the point:
If we agree that we may not do what we think is right and necessary for our national security if any one of England, France, Russia, or China says "veto," then our enemies can paralyze us simply by influencing one foreign country. The influence might be exerted by bribes . . ., or by threat of terrorist violence. But one way or another, an enemy that couldn't break down our resolve could still stop us from doing what needs to be done by breaking down the resolve of one of the veto-owning countries. (The same applies if we just generally agree not to go ahead without the agreement of "our European allies" generally--if the threat of terrorist retaliation cows several of those allies, that could be enough to stymie our plans.)
And here's a chilling thought, courtesy USA Today:
In American politics, it's called the October Surprise: a dramatic, last-minute event that swings the election into the hands of the incumbent president. In Spain, that surprise came seven months early, a terrorist attack that turned a near-certain win for a pro-U.S. government into a stunning defeat with potentially ominous repercussions.
We're far from the first to ask this, but what if al Qaeda decides that an election eve attack is the way to persuade Americans to vote "the criminal Bush" out of office? We suspect such an attack wouldn't have the desired political result; a complacent America is much more likely to vote for John Kerry than a freshly terrorized one. But the Spanish attack makes us awfully uneasy about what may happen in America in late October.
'The Obligation of
Inciting Religious Hatred'
Al-Muhajiroun
is at it again. On Sept. 9, 2002, we
noted that the London-based pro-terror group was holding a celebration of
the Sept. 11 anniversary, which it dubbed "a towering day in history."
Now the group's Web site is promoting a conference it held earlier this month
on "How the Khilaafah will be restored & Man-made law destroyed."
Under those words appears the image we've reproduced nearby, of the U.S. Capitol
burning, apparently after a Sept. 11-style attack. (That's the Senate side in
flames.)
The group is also advertising a talk this Saturday on "one of the greatest forgotten obligations in Islaam--Inciting religious hatred. . . . One cannot be Muslim without to declare animosity and hatred towards kufr, bid'ah, shirk and nifaaq (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Democracy, Freedom etc.)."
O
Brothel, Where Art Thou--II?
It's the new "Jenin massacre": Once again, the left-wing British press
is propounding a lie in the hopes of benefiting terrorists. This time the target
is America, and specifically the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Last week,
as we
noted, the far-left Mirror tabloid published the ludicrous claim of a released
British national that "prostitutes were taken into the camp to degrade
Muslim inmates."
Over the weekend, the more respectable Guardian parroted the charge:
At the same time that we face new atrocities in Madrid, we hear the voices of the first Britons released from Guantánamo Bay where, according to former detainee Jamal al-Harith, they endured a regime of unremitting cruelty.
He describes systematic humiliation, clearly aimed at corroding the humanity of the victims, and which included exposing devout Muslims to insult by prostitutes.
It is a testament to the intellectually degraded state of the British left that its members repeat uncritically this absurd assertion from a Muslim moonbat. If al-Harith's claims have any basis in reality, the "prostitutes" of whom he speaks are most likely American servicewomen, and al Qaeda's useful idiots in Britain's left-wing press have been duped into endorsing the notion that equality of the sexes amounts to "torture."
What
Would We Do Without Interpol?
"Al-Qaeda Is Not the Only Threat: Interpol"--headline, Times of India,
March 12
The
Times Recognizes Israel
"An article last Sunday about attempts to create democracy in Iraq misstated
the precedent in the Mideast. Iraq would become the region's second functioning
democracy, after Israel, not its first."--correction, New York Times, March 14
Kerry
to Voters: Mind Your Own Business!
The Associated Press reports on a town meeting John Kerry held yesterday in
Bethlehem, Pa.:
The town meeting was contentious at times, with 52-year-old Cedric Brown repeatedly pressing the candidate to name the foreign leaders whom [sic] Kerry has said are backing his campaign.
"I'm not going to betray a private conversation with anybody," Kerry said. As the crowd of several hundred people began to mutter and boo, Kerry said, "That's none of your business."
We guess "That's none of your business" is more polite than "You sit down!" But it's breathtakingly arrogant for Kerry to assert that his putative promises to foreign leaders to change America's policies are none of the voters' business.
Señor
Nuance
Add Cuba to the list of topics about which John Kerry is all over the map. The
Miami Herald describes how Kerry addressed the question in a West Palm Beach
interview:
"I'm pretty tough on Castro, because I think he's running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist secret police government in the world," Kerry told WPLG-ABC 10 reporter Michael Putney. . . .
Then, reaching back eight years to one of the more significant efforts to toughen sanctions on the communist island, Kerry volunteered: "And I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him."
It seemed the correct answer in a year in which Democratic strategists think they can make a play for at least a portion of the important Cuban-American vote--as they did in 1996 when more than three in 10 backed President Clinton's reelection after he signed the sanctions measure written by Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Dan Burton.
There is only one problem: Kerry voted against it.
Asked Friday to explain the discrepancy, Kerry aides said the senator cast one of the 22 nays that day in 1996 because he disagreed with some of the final technical aspects. But, said spokesman David Wade, Kerry supported the legislation in its purer form--and voted for it months earlier.
Sure enough, Kerry voted for Helms-Burton in 1995 and against it in 1996, when it actually became law. Apparently the nuances--sorry, "technical aspects"--mattered more to him than the bill itself. Kerry is also on both sides when it comes to Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy the Clinton administration seized at gunpoint and deported to communist Cuba:
Asked in the Herald interview last year about sending Elián back to Cuba, Kerry was blunt: "I didn't agree with that."
But when he was asked to elaborate, Kerry acknowledged that he agreed the boy should have been with his father.
So what didn't he agree with?
"I didn't like the way they did it. I thought the process was butchered," he said.
No wonder he's so popular with the ladies. John Edwards may have been cute, but Kerry has more positions than the Kama Sutra.
The
French Connection
Everyone agrees that John Kerry is a haughty Massachusetts Democrat who by the
way served in Vietnam, but there's some
dispute over whether he is French-looking. Among those who think he is,
the New York Sun reports from Paris, are the French:
"He is very much admired in France," said a municipal office worker, Patrick Forestier, as he strolled with his lunch through the Latin Quarter. "It seems like he will be more sympathetic to Europe. . . . And of course anyone who is opposed to Bush will be popular with us."
A shop worker on Boulevard St-Germain, Dominique Van Oudenhove, said Mr. Kerry seems the perfect antidote to four years of Mr. Bush.
"It is so important to have a president who knows Europe, whose spirit is open to its people and culture. Bush is so closed to the world. With Kerry there is a hope that we can start getting along with the United States again," she said.
Mrs. Borde said the French see in Mr. Kerry the kind of leader they are more accustomed to.
"He is the closest thing that you will have to a French politician, with a certain diplomacy, a certain elegance," she said."He is more like a leader would be in Europe," Mr. Parmentier said. Asked in what way, he laughed and replied: "Well, he doesn't look Texan."
If Kerry doesn't win the White House, he'll always have Paris.
Just
What His Image Needs
"Kerry's Next Job: Cementing Image Among Voters"--headline, Washington
Post, March 14
Fall
Into the Gap
"Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said Saturday the Bush administration has a 'widening
credibility gap' between what it tells the American people and the facts,"
the Associated Press reports.
Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.
Be
Vewy Vewy Quiet
"GOP Taps Rabbitt for Assembly Run"--headline, Times Herald-Record
(Middletown, N.Y.), March 12
Zero-Tolerance
Watch
The Arizona Republic reports that 17-year-old Marlon Morgan, a junior at Saguaro
High School in Scottsdale, was sitting in the school cafeteria one day early
this month, when the crack Saguaro security staff noticed something amiss: His
baseball cap was on sideways.
They swung into action and ordered him to adjust the headwear. "He refused saying he felt singled out":
It is against school policy to wear hats sideways because it can be a sign of disrespect for authority, the police report said, but Marlon, who is Black, said that the rule is enforced selectively. According to a police report, he pointed to several White students whose hats were on sideways.
Things quickly escalated, as a cop and a pair of assistant principals appeared on the scene. "Assistant Principal Steve Salcito finally told Morgan he was being suspended for insubordination." Whereupon Scottsdale's finest arrested him for trespassing. "Morgan was taken to police headquarters, where he was fingerprinted, photographed and kept in a jail cell for several hours."
Hat tip: ZeroIntelligence.net.
Geography
for Dummies
Fresh from winning an Oscar for Best Actress, Charlize Theron went to her native
South Africa, where she met with Nelson Mandela, the former president. "Mandela
thanked 'the girl from Benoni,' east of Johannesburg, for "putting South Africa
on the map,' " Agence France-Presse reports. " 'Even those
who did not know it, now know where South Africa is,' Mandela said."
So if you were under the misconception that South Africa was in North America or East Asia, you can thank Charlize Theron for setting you straight.
A
Mel Gibson Production?
"Other scheduled events include a discussion on Jesus Christ and a screening
of the film 'Mohammed: Legacy of a Profit' among others."--from a Harvard
Crimson story about "Islam Awareness Week," March 15
Life Imitates the Onion
"Cool Dad a Terrible Father"--headline, the Onion, March 10
"Murder Suspect 'the Best Dad Anybody Could Ever Have"--headline, CNN, March 14
183
Centimeters Under
Sad news from Sunderland, England, where a hero of freedom has died an untimely
death. Steven Thoburn, greengrocer, became known as the "Metric Martyr"
when he "was prosecuted by Sunderland City Council on charges of breaching
the Weights and Measures Act after selling bananas by the pound," the Press
Association reports. He "is understood to have collapsed and died without
warning at his Sunderland home" yesterday, possibly from a heart attack.
He was 39, or, as the metric folks would put it, 300 kilohours.
Dihydrogen
Monoxide on the Brain
The City Council of tiny Alisa Viejo, in Orange County, Calif., is considering
a proposal to ban Styrofoam cups after they learned that the deadly chemical
dihydrogen monoxide
was used in their production. City Manager David Norman says municipal officials
are also concerned with the city's water supply: "If you get Styrofoam into
the water and it breaks apart, it's virtually impossible to clean up." Just
in time for Brain Awareness
Week.
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Napoleon Cole, Michael Segal, Barak Moore, Michael Zukerman, Monty Krieger, Ami Avivi, Bill Vis, Raghu Desikan, Christopher Fox, Nancy Zimmerman, Doug Payton, Andrew Fox, Robert LeCheavlier, Greg Smith, Tom Linehan, Ethel Fenig, Jeffrey Weinstein, Nathan Wirtschafter, Patrick Campbell, Nick Eckert, Erik Moy, Moshe Bell, Alisa Duncanson, C.E. Dobkin, Joel Engel, William Schultz, John Koenig, Michael Robbins, Pavel Bouska, Bernard Cohen, Jonathan Rothenberg, S.E. Brenner, Yitzchak Dorfman, Hershel Ginsburg, Bill Cowardin, Aaron Ammerman, Stephen Wyse, John Gaylord, Michael Nunnelley, David Shapero, Thomas Dillon, Chip George, Charlie Gaylord, David Drucker, Mark Schulze, Jim Orheim, Ed Lasky, Nick Zangari, James Trager, Bennett Stern, Tod Lancaster, Jim Gruler, Bill Deeks, Jim Kitchens, Susan Harms, Bill Schumm, Greg Hartman, Michael Siegel, Bradley Barrett, Yehuda Hilewitz, Eric Ivers, Matthew Noonan, Michael Zorn, Steve Prestegard, Mike Davisson and Arthur Meyer. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Robert Pollock: Did any of Saddam's money filter back to American war critics?
- John Fund: In both political parties, the defense of moderation is no virtue.
- Donald Sensing: The Pill made same-sex marriage inevitable.
