I am not worthy

Once again, James Lileks writes like I could only dream of doing. In today's Bleat, he addresses the bombings in Madrid, Spain. I will excerpt some here but you simply must go and read the rest.

I thought at first it must be Al Qaeda, given the significance of Spain to these horrid farkwits; the whole “tragedy of Andalusia” thing figures large in their menu of grievances. You think: that was half a millennia ago. Move on. But it’s not as if they are stuck in past history. There is no such thing as history for these people. There is simply a condition that must be changed. The world must submit. The aberration of the Reconquista must be reversed. These are obvious truths. They will come to pass. If you oppose these truths, you oppose God. Look at this great hall, full of the proud and the profane, intent on their wordly lives; if only they knew their sins, they would clamor to take your place and push the button themselves.

It is not what we've done, it is simply what we are. We are free, and they can't allow that. They must rule the world because their God tells them so. Anything else is simply unacceptable.

To some, the act of "resistance" has such a romantic pull they cannot possibly renounce the use of flamboyant violence - until they find themselves in a train station on an average weekday morning, ears ringing, eyes clouded, looking down at their shirt, wondering why it's so red all of a sudden.

What these people who oppose our efforts to stamp out terrorism and reform the society that breeds it don't seem to get is that the terrorists would just as happily kill them as anyone else. In their eyes, we're all acceptable targets and worthy only of death.

Could be ETA. Could be AQ. Could be, as some have said, that this was the opening of the the Islamacist’s front in Europe.

But it's all a front. If there’s a man sitting on a park bench reading about Buddhism: it’s a front. If there’s a woman at the mall with her head uncovered, it’s a front. If there’s a little girl in a school learning about the periodic table, it’s a front. If there’s two women in a park holding hands and sneaking a smooch, it’s a front. If there’s a guy in a room posting to his website his arguments for atheism, it’s a front. If you’re reading your child a story whose hero is a clever pig, you’re living on the edge of the front. If the appointed hour comes and the call to prayer doesn’t drift from the spiky towers, it’s a front.

The last line in the post is the best of all. Now go.

Update: FrankJ over at IMAO turns off the funny and writes a short, direct post about the bombings.

Spain had some huge allies in us, Britain, and others, and justice will be coming like a bat out of hell for those responsible. Do little, pathetic terroists think they really can intimidate us. Do they think their attacks will do anything other than make us more resolved in killing the bastards?

The more they attack us, the more they cement our resolve to stomp them out and make sure that no others will arise in their place.