More Bombs in Spain

Message to the rest of us: capitulation doesn't work. The bombs don't stop when you vote in a socialist government that pledges to remove itself from America's coalition in Iraq.

An Islamic militant allegedly related to the March 11 train attacks threatened earlier to blow up the building.

Police had cordoned off the area and evacuated seven blocks around the building. Earlier, police had been conducting an anti-terrorist operation connected to the March 11 attack, which killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800, Interior Ministry spokesman Richard Ibanez (search) said. He could not say how many suspects there were, or their importance or connection to the attacks.

I crave peace and a respite from this war just as much as any leftist, anti-war activist you can imagine. It breaks my heart every time I hear about another soldier fallen when a terrorist leaves a bomb at the side of a road. It aches when I think about the mothers and fathers and wives and children and friends that are left behind. I want peace, too.

But I won't delude myself into believing that terrorists can be negotiated with when you allow them the position of power and control. This isn't an ongoing war of choice or convenience, but of utter and complete necessity if we ever want to feel safe on airplanes and trains and in our places of business ever again. This is something that has to happen if we want our children to continue to argue over things like tax policy, same sex marriage, and online voting instead of living under the constant threat of 9/11.

Even under the insane belief that America and the rest of the world could leave the Middle East today, simply abandoning all of our interests and abandoning the Israeli Jews to the terrorists and bombers, does anyone really believe that we would be safe? Does anyone really believe that, suddenly, the terrorists would lose their interest in tearing down the institutions of the West? Of course not.

And even if you do believe that, there is no practical or ethical case to be made for abandoning those interests or abandoning those people who are trying to bring a new face of liberalism and civility to the Middle East. The tendrils of militant Islam are slipping through Africa, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe even now--and the cultural conflicts aren't simply going away because a country decides to abandon the rebuilding of Iraq.

We could take the path that Spain did, by demanding in no uncertain terms that our troops come home from Afghanistan and Iraq. We could elect only those politicians who would support that goal. We could fool ourselves into believing that it would make us safer and happier.

Then one morning we'll wake to another bomb at a nuclear facility or at the World Series. We will realize that we were wrong. All the work and effort that we had done, all of the momentum that we had built, would be lost. Every dead soldier and civilian from all of the countries that participated would have died in vain, their blood shed for a temporary respite at best.

I can't accept that.

Read the story.

Update: Andy is thinking very much the same thing.

Posted by zombyboy at April 3, 2004 02:04 PM | TrackBack