We have all read of, heard, or watched the horrific scenes in Madrid. The blogosphere is alight once more and just about everyone has weighed in on it. So much so that I don't even think it's worth my chiming in on who did it, or why - because the facts in my opinion point to Al Qaeda and it is a matter for the intelligence community to discern. What I will write of concerns the inevitable idiocy which will be pronounced throughout certain wings of the media, when they can throw away their masks of sorrow and proceed with their spinning.
"Well if it is Al Qaeda... It's Spain's fault for supporting the war on Iraq"
It's coming. You know it is. Most importantly it will highlight the most fundamental flaw in the beliefs and understanding of its utterers. That flaw is the assumption that if Spain had done nothing, that this horror would not have been inflicted upon it, or any other peoples of the world.
On September 11th, when Al Qaeda massacred 3000 people, if it could have killed 30,000 it would have, if it could have killed 3,000,000 it would have. There is no equivalency in their murder, no sliding scale of brutality. If Spain hadn't help liberate Iraq then those explosives wouldn't have sat in some abandoned warehouse - they would have still killed 300 Spaniards or perhaps 300 Brits, 300 Italians, or 300 Germans instead.
Al Qaeda is a ruthless genocidal group of psychopaths - they literally hold no regard for the sanctity of human life, anywhere in the world. A lot of liberal minded pundits need to wake up to that fact and stop implying some sort of rational agenda to their motives. I can only hope that the events in Madrid might help achieve that end.
Posted by John Swaine at March 12, 2004 06:56 PM