Spain's 3/11

192 dead. Approximately 1400 injured. One wonders what it will take before some people grok that these are acts of war and draw the obvious conclusions... but since the depresing answer to that question is a couple of nuked cities or an engineered chimera plague, let's just move on to events in Madrid.

• First things first. If you wish to send expressions of sympathy et. al., Instapundit tells you how. There will also be a memorial ceremony in New York tomorrow.

• For direct access, here's the site for the Spanish Government.

• Donald Sensing has some TV screenshots. There were 13 explosions in all, each using backpacks loaded with 15kg (33 lbs) of titadine: 3 went off at Atocha, 4 in the neighborhood of the Calle Tellez, one at Santa Eugenia, and 2 at El Pozo. 3 booby traps were disactivated by the bomb squad.

• Iberian Notes also has the M.O. for the bombings - it's very simple, easily replicable in any train network or subway system, and the security costs to defend against it are prohibitive. I'm surprised it took terrorists this long to clue in to the possbilities, frankly - it's a logical extrapolation from the bus bombings in Israel, and this attack should gve the pattern new impetus.

• Speaking of which, Israellycool asks if anyone else finds the hypocrisy troubling, as they note the double-standards. I do.

• Ongoing coverage of 3/11: Iberian Notes, naturally. Expat Yank does a fine job of following reports, sifting the evidence, and offering some caustic commentary. And The Command Post is reliable as always. But the best compilation is Instapundit's - Glen really outdid himself on this one.

Right now, the big question is who did it. Basque ETA terrorists are the obvious first suspects, but there is some doubt. Reports indicate that the explosives are ETA's accustomed type, but a number of signature ETA behaviours are missing and the M.O. is more like al-Qaeda's.

• Some disagree, and say that the attack does indeed fit ETA's pattern. Command Post reports that Interior Minister Angel Acebes said security services knew it was ETA because the group attempted a similar attack on Christmas Eve, placing bombs on two trains bound for a Madrid station. He also noted that on February 29, police intercepted a Madrid-bound van packed with more than 1,000 pounds of explosives and associated with ETA.

• The Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri has claimed responsibility for the bombing. The claim comes after investigators found an Arabic language tape with Koranic versus in a van carrying bomb detonators near Madrid.

• Burnside points out that Madrid's 3/11 attacks came exactly 911 days after 9/11. This is correct.

• A few bloggers also noted back in January that it was "Europe's turn next," prompted by a Guardian Observer article and an alert from Trent Telenko.

• A couple weeks ago, Trent also pointed me at a piece about a "global bomb making network." It will be interesting to see what TEDAC comes up with on this one. Especially since Iberian notes mentions that the bombs may have used ETA's standared explosive, but the design is new.

• Joe Gandelman, who covered Spain for the CSM in 1973-78 and spent a fair bit of time in the Basque area, is weighing up the possibilities and just not sure.

Bottom line? We don't know who did it. Indeed, we may never be sure. Newsflash: terrorists also lie. So we treat this as the war it is, and go after all groups who use such tactics and share this mindset, and especially the regimes who support them. Result: we raise the costs sharply, and dry up their resources, and take a huge step toward winning.

Altrernatively, we can screw around by using the same liberal approach to crime and public safety that proved so successful as a conservative recruiting tool in the 1980s. Debbye at An American in T.O. quotes Dissident Frogman, and the quote is perfect. Then Gerald Van Der Leun gets to the heart of the matter.

All rights reserved. This article can be found on the Internet at:

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/spains_311.php

Persons wishing to contact the author of this article for reprints etc. should put a request in the Comments section, or send an email to "joe", over here @windsofchange.net.