Terrorist attacks in Europe have been numerous and ongoing, but the sheer scale of Spain’s “3/11” and the concomittant carnage are new and shaking. Spain is frightened — and lashing out. Remember how badly the US needed to act, to do something, practically anything, after 9/11? Well, what’s happening is a re-direction of anger away from the ever-elusive actual terrorists to a more convenient target: here, the US.
A terrible countenance is emerging in Europe: it is that of a Europe gleeful in its anti-Americanism, guised as anti-Bushism at present — Madrid has provided the catalyst. For those of us opposed to US intervention abroad, but who deeply care about our country, this augers very poorly for the state of the world: the US historically hasn’t responded well to isolation, but over-engages as if in compensation; Spain and Britain and other US allies will suffer as they regress to a time of consolidation with the elderly attitudes of an aging European intellectual elite, who truly do not care about the common citizen or their economic plights, or respect their ability to make decisions. In the past four years, Spain has been making strides toward increased economic growth, cultural revitalization, and improved internal security vis-a-vis ETA — but that is gone now — in the time it takes to cast a reactive ballot. So — another unintended consequence of the US war on Iraq is that of disrupting the somewhat emerging era of greater freedoms in Europe — and precipitated by the US itself lashing out at the wrong party, Iraq, instead of focusing on the terrorists who imminently caused our 9/11.