Lessons from Spain

Here's a simple thought-experiment. You want something. You do something in an attempt to get it. It works. You want more. What do you do?

The logical response would be: You do the same thing as you did before.

In this case, it was the terrorists who wanted something. What they wanted was capitulation. What they did was the bombings in Madrid. It worked, the Socialists are now in power and Spain will be withdrawing its troops from Iraq and will implement the strategy of appeasement.

The terrorists won't be satisfied, though. They want more of what they just got, namely favorable results from a national election. What will they do?

In less than eight months, the people of the United States of America will elect the man who will lead this country for the next four years. Who do you think the terrorists want to be elected? What do you think they will do to ensure they get the result they want? This election is vastly more important to the war against terrorists and their supporters than the election in Spain was. Take a few seconds to think about it.

The people of Spain have every right to elect who they want but, if they think they've made the world a safer place as a result of their choice, they're wrong. They gave the terrorists what they wanted, which will only encourage them to do the same thing again. By their actions, the people of Spain have made the free world *less* safe, not more. Thanks a lot.

As Mike said in this post:

The people of Spain, in spite of the Aznar government’s previous support for America’s WoT, prefer weakness and capitulation to strength and courage in a difficult fight. They have sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind, and they deserve to; this was probably the biggest victory al Qaeda has achieved since 9/11. Think of the lesson to be drawn from this: that by setting off a few bombs, the terrorists can now chart the course that a free election in a democratic country - which countries they loathe above all else - will follow. I’d be willing to bet that they’re even now cooking up something similar for us this year, if they weren’t already. And they probably were, in fact. They have only one problem.

This ain’t Europe, and Americans ain’t Europeans, and thank God for that. No matter how many journalists, movie stars, college professors, and vapid urbanites might loudly wish we were more like the Europeans, there are still way too many of us out here in flyover country who would rather die on our feet than live one moment on our knees. We know by now - and those of us who didn’t know it before have learned it since 9/11 - that our media can’t be trusted; that many of our institutions have been undermined and corrupted by spineless and self-seeking politicians from both parties, but mostly by the Democrats’ love for the ever-expanding Nanny State; that the Left’s vision for how we should be governed is neither workable nor innocuous; that the 60’s, far from the rose-tinted view still irremediably held by liberals of a hopeful struggle for an egalitarian and nonviolent utopia, was in fact a decade characterized primarily by vanity, selfishness, and wastrel nihilism; that there is nothing whatever wrong with the unilateral pursuit by America of America’s own best interests.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope that the result of that election is not what I fear it will be. Time will tell if my hope is justified. Let's just say that October is going to be a tense month.

Update: McQ at QandO writes on the election in Spain:

My guess is they actually believe this will buy them “peace.” I can only imagine then, that on the whole, the Spanish electorate is as ignorant of the history of appeasers as are many in the US. In fact, giving in may, if anything, put them at the bottom of the list of targets for a while, but nothing more.

The Spanish may be assured of one thing though ... their capitulation doesn’t remove them from the list by any stretch. Should they again need a ‘nudge’ because of actions which may be deemed by 3/11's masterminds as a direct threat to them, Spaniards can expect terrorists to violently and overwhelmingly remind them who they REALLY belong too now ... that they now dance to only one tune ... the terrorist’s.

I like to think that the same thing won't happen here, even if there is a large-scale terrorist attack before the election. I like to think that the people of this country won't roll over on their backs and present their bellies to the terrorist's teeth and claws. I like to think that, should there be another attack on the scale of what happened in Madrid, or worse, that it would only strengthen our resolve to stamp out the source and make sure it can't happen again. I like to think a lot of things. I'm hopeful, but I'm not going to make the mistake of assuming the worst won't happen.