GMontag's Journal: Hitchens in Slate: "To Die in Madrid"

fighting words
To Die in Madrid
The nutty logic that says Spain provoked Islamist terrorism.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, March 15, 2004, at 12:28 PM PT

The Basque country, with its historic capital in Guernica, had been one of the main battlegrounds against Hitler and Mussolini in their first joint aggression in Spain, and many European families adopted Basque orphans and raised money for the resistance. It is tedious to relate the story of ETA's degeneration into a gangster organization that itself proclaims a fascist ideology of Basque racial uniqueness, and anyway one doesn't need to bother, since nobody any longer argues that there is a "root cause" of ETA's atrocities. In the face of this kind of subhuman nihilism, people know without having to be told that the only response is a quiet, steady hatred and contempt, and a cold determination to outlast the perpetrators while remorselessly tracking them down.

However, it seems that some Spaniards, and some non-Spanish commentators, would change on a dime if last week's mass murder in Madrid could be attributed to the Bin-Ladenists. In that case not only would there be a root cause--the deployment of 1,300 Spanish soldiers in the reconstruction of Iraq--but there would also be a culpable person, namely Spain's retiring prime minister. By this logic, terrorism would also have a cure--the withdrawal of those Spanish soldiers from a country where al-Qaida emphatically does not desire them to be.

Try not to laugh or cry, but some spokesmen of the Spanish left have publicly proposed exactly this syllogism. I wonder if I am insulting the readers of Slate if I point out its logical and moral deficiencies:

Well, the good stuff is at the link for my thinking fans to read. Others will gladly babble on about what is quoted :)

I personally think..

[salimma]

.. that it's Aznar's attempt to blame the ETA despite mounting evidence of al Qaeda involvement that lost the PP the election.

Whether they would have been bombed had Spain not participated in the invasion - who knows. Probably. I'm sure that most reasonable people on the left in Spain want troop withdrawal not solely to prevent future al Qaeda reprisal though.

Re:I personally think..

[GMontag]

Yes, I think there was a big effect of them giving the knee-jerk reaction (lie or not) had an effect, but right now I am leaning to the theory that the bombing hurded the electorate into the hands of the terrorists.

Re:I personally think..

[salimma]

Event A triggered event B triggered event C, so indirectly, yes, I suppose. If the bombing did not happen Aznar would not be scared into attempting a cover-up and his party would probably still be in power.

I'm willing to put in a 40-60 bet that Spain would still be in Iraq post-June though. The 'our troops coming home' sounds like post-election euphoria by the more left-wing members of the electorate; after all the PM-elect's promise was conditional (troops going home if no UN deal struck).

And with a tran