Arab News
Wednesday's Madrid massacre is arguably Europe’s Sept. 11. It came three and a half years to the day after Al-Qaeda’s murderous attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The danger is that this latest outrage may wreak the same change in attitudes among Europeans as the New York and Washington crimes did for Americans.
| I suppose in Arabia they might consider that to be a danger... |
The fury that Madrid’s traumatic horrors have caused across Europe has yet to coalesce, because it is not yet clear who perpetrated this savagery. The Spanish government’s immediate blaming of ETA terrorists now seems premature, all the more so given ETA’s denial, although they can hardly be taken at their word. The discovery of a stolen van with seven detonators and an audiotape with verses from the Qur’an in the town of Alcala de Henares has inevitably cast suspicion on Al-Qaeda.
| As does the technique, the corpse count, and the timing... |
The van might have been planted by ETA but this would undermine the impact of the terror attack. In the past the Basque killers have happily acknowledged their butchery. The simultaneous timing and pitiless nature of the assaults on civilians are far more in keeping with the depraved record of Al-Qaeda.
If this is proven, the impact upon European policy toward the Middle East will be profound. Thus far, Europe’s leaders have attempted to put the brakes on the aggressive Bush White House approach toward Iraq, Palestine and Israel. European leaders have been prepared to argue the Palestinian case and condemn Israel’s brutalization of the inhabitants of the occupied territories.
| They're continuing to 9-10 it, making distinctions among terrorists... |
A majority of Europeans, even in the UK and Spain whose governments actively supported Washington’s Iraq policy, has opposed the Iraq invasion and felt that the Coalition has brought the subsequent violence there upon itself and the Iraqi people. If Al-Qaeda is shown to have perpetrated the Madrid crimes or had anything to do with them, the sentiment in Europe is likely to undergo a fundamental change. European cities will brace themselves for further massacres. The same bigoted reaction toward Muslims that took place in the US after Sept. 11 may well be seen in Europe.
| Some of us consider our reactions to be quite reasonable, given the circumstances. And the reaction's not toward all Muslims, but toward Islamists — the people who want to impose Islam on the rest of the world at the point of a gun. The people who're willing to blow up trains full of people in Madrid. |
Indeed it may be worse. Europe’s racist bigots like France’s National Front are bound to try and cash in, claiming their vicious xenophobia has been vindicated.
| Indeed, perhaps it has. Europe's now chock full of people who are determined to adhere to a different, inimical culture. Why go to Europe if you're not going to be European? Unless it's to impose your own culture and displace the existing populace. |
Europe could easily be infected with American paranoia and illiberalism. Most crucially, it might start to accept Israel’s craven claims that it too is a helpless victim of fanatical Muslim terrorism.
| Bus booms, train booms — show me the difference... |
If Al-Qaeda were responsible for the enormity of Madrid, nothing could have been better calculated to destroy the position of moderate European politicians searching for an end to Palestine’s agony.
| Too bad for the Paleos, huh? Maybe they should have negotiated. I guess it's a cultural thing. |
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