What spain shouldn't forget...

Is the socialist party's victory in spain appeasing the terrorists?

at first glance, it looks to be the case.

but Zapatero ran on a platform of pulling spanish troops out of the iraq "fiasco" and has some legitimate criticisms of bush's "shock and awe" modus operandi. most notably, he believes the iraq war is a detour from the real fight against terrorism.

I'm inclined to agree on the detour theory at first. what started the ball rolling was some crazy idiots who flew planes into buildings...this took us to afghanistan (with congress' blessing). but then we had some cooked-up threats of chemical warfare attack which led us to iraq (because "saddam tried to kill my daddy").

so yes, there is somewhat of a detour from fighting al qaida to take care of bush's personal vendetta. however, we're not really out of the ballpark. saddam was the #1 supporter of palestinian terrorism and he absolutely had to go. at least we can thank bush for ridding the world of the $25K carrot dangling before the suicide bomber's nose.

and, for what it is worth, the "flypaper" tactic seems to have worked...a bunch of suicide bombers left the palestinian territories (and lebanon and presumably afghanistan) and headed for iraq.

but I have to agree it seems a reckless tactic. bush's "bring it on" battle cry has left us with daily bloodsplash in the morning papers. it certainly doesn't help our global image of the war and makes it even more difficult for us to get the new iraqi government off the ground successfully.

but...WHAT SPAIN SHOULDN'T FORGET is that nothing they will do will take them off the hit list. even if they had never set a single toe in iraq, they would still be on al qaida's hit list.

Why? because al-qaida's goal is to take back all the lands that once belonged to the muslim empire...and they want Andalusia back! the spanish government could bow to bin laden and he would simply chop off their heads. there is nothing spain can do to appease them, so they might as well stand and fight.

I think Zapatero has a point that you can't fight terrorism with tomohawks but rather with the rule of law, but as a practical matter, that is a protectionist view. sure, you have to have state law on your side, you have to be prepared to detect and fend off potential attacks from the hydra's tentacles...but you can keep chopping off tentacles and there will be more, it is an endless cycle that is sure to lose in the end because you will never catch all the tentacles coming at you and more people will die as a result.

you simply can't win this war on a purely protectionist stance.

chopping off the hydra's heads is not much better, but at least you are getting somewhere by trying. sure, if you chop off one head another will take its place, but heads take more time to grow than arms. presumably, if you can chop off enough heads simultaneously, the hydra will collapse.

but this is the most dangerous time, when the tentacles lash out wildly without direction...and this is when you need good protectionist tactics.

the only way to defeat the hydra is to fight at both ends...send the troops to chop off the heads, and strengthen your homefront to chop off the tentacles as they reach out.

but also what spain (and the rest of europe) should not forget is that they cannot escape the fight. I'm going to be cheezy and draw a LOTR analogy here...

Was the kingdom of Rohan saved by the king giving in to saruman's control? No. their families were slaughtered and their villages burned. Once freed from that control (woo hoo gandalf!), did the king's protectionist tactic of moving everyone to helm's deep save them? No. the armies of darkness came and nearly defeated them. even with the help of the elves, their fortress was still breached with bombs. They were only saved in the darkest hour by the surprise assistance of the army of gondor, their neighbor whom they didn't trust. they only won by fighting the fight.

but as gandalf said, "the battle for helm's deep is over, the battle for middle earth begins..." analogous meaning: they fought off many tentacles, but the heads still remained...the powers of darkness can only be defeated by chopping off the heads.