Joe, regarding the date of the attack, I think that the fact that it was done 3 days before a presidential election is more relevant than numerology games.

But you are right, it's still not clear who did it. And the fact that the political crossfire has already started doesn't help much. The anti-Aznar people are openly wishing that this was Al Qaeda's work just to blame President Aznar for making this happening to us because of his alignment with the U.S. Excuse me while I go to puke.

But although still unknown for sure, the most probable bastard that did this monstrosity is still ETA. Despite the unusual signs, I think that because just two months ago, on Christmas eve, Spanish police thwarted an identical attack when they arrested two ETA terrorists aboart trains en route to Madrid with backpacks full of explosives.

If it was Al Qaeda, I wonder if they deliberately timed the attack to influence Spain's upcoming elections. Here's why I think the timing may have been calculated.

Initial reports indicate that the "truce" isn't holding, and both sides are politicizing the issues though not openly. It's an open question which way the electorate swings, but I think it will have a profound effect. As for attacking the liberal approach to things, during the 90's I was really steamed at how the Clinton Administration was falling down on the job of taking on terrorism.

Now I grant that generally the party of most of my life the Republicans have a much more itchy trigger finger, but I'm not sure that with their complete inability to discern that little thing called REALITY that they're really capable of handling this. Indeed, signs so far across the spectrum say no. That the Special Ops teams aren't working well because we've got them spread thin, that the governments we've befriended are twisting like a double edged knife in our hands, and that all we did was speed up the retirement of the oldguard of alqueda and the advance of the next generation.

As for treating these acts as acts of war, I completely agree. However, there is a difference between these being acts of war and being able to make war on the people responsible. This is because they seem to be in places like Pakistan, Jordan, Germany, or even Florida that we can't just nuke. The prosecutorial model is silly, but so is invading countries semi-randomly. If it were that easy, we'd be doing that by now.

Or is anyone really ready to commit to invasions of Cheznya, Iran, Georgia, Yemen, the disputed Kashmir region, Pakistan, and Somalia within the next four years? That's what this theory amounts to, cause that's where some of these guys are. Invading an entire country to get at a handful of guys is going to be useless as a strategy unless that country is openly harboring these guys as a national strategy. And after Iraq, we're not going to have much credibility on our next target. Not to mention that some proliferating countries like North Korea, are "untouchable" because of the patronage of countries like China.

Invading other countries sounds swell, until like you realize that there's something called like the real world.

Recent commentators who have been speculating, unduly I might add since Alqueda is a long term planning agency, that Alqueda was so weakened that it couldn't launch a major attack against the West will have to eat crow now.

Alqueda is apparently still in business or other terrorists have figured out how to biggie size their attacks. Either way, the complacency about our progress

Actually it was 912 days but the terrorists don't care about February as much as their precious bombs.

Two things that may be coincidental, maybe not.

3-11, of course, is precisely six months after 9-11. As pointed out above, maybe nothing more than numerology, a coincidence.

But there's another wrinkle not mentioned much this week. OBL's previous rants sometimes mention the so-called "tragedy of al-Andalus" i.e., the fall of Moorish Spain -- Andalusia etc. -- to the Reconquista, completed in 1492 with the capture of Granada.

Some commentators mention Spain's participation in the war against terror today, but the reason for this attack may have more to do with a 500-year-old grudge. (See Benjamin/Simon, "The Age of Sacred Terror" for more on this mind-set). If so, and if that prompted this atrocity, then we're dealing with an enemy who is truly medieval and obtuse. In a word, implacable: we stop them only by destroying them.

Two things that may be coincidental, maybe not.

3-11, of course, is precisely six months after 9-11. As pointed out above, maybe nothing more than numerology, a coincidence.

But there's another wrinkle not mentioned much this week. OBL's previous rants sometimes mention the so-called "tragedy of al-Andalus" i.e., the fall of Moorish Spain -- Andalusia etc. -- to the Reconquista, completed in 1492 with the capture of Granada.

Some commentators mention Spain's participation in the war against terror today, but the reason for this attack may have more to do with a 500-year-old grudge. (See Benjamin/Simon, "The Age of Sacred Terror" for more on this mind-set). If so, and if that prompted this atrocity, then we're dealing with an enemy who is truly medieval and obtuse. In a word, implacable: we stop them only by destroying them.

Bulletin - Today Spain surrendered to the Islamist terrorists.

I am very depressed. I see now today that we are going to loose the War on Terror. Spain is the harbinger for our times. The innocent die and leaders brave enough to stand against the terrorists are voted out of office. The Socialists in Europe and here in the United States don't care about liberty or freedom. They will have their peace at all costs and the West will pay for it dearly ten years from now.

KH,

The only thing that changed in the Spanish election results is the total number of dead non-Americans before our final victory.

That death count just went up an order of magnitude.

I hope you're right Trent. But with a quivering bunch of socialists now in charge of Spain, and Kerry's prospects looking better and better here, I wouldn't bet the back forty much less the farm on it.

Trent: I agree. KH also says

"They will have their peace at all costs and the West will pay for it dearly ten years from now."

I assume KH is referring to a deadly WMD attack on the US. However, IMO, the result of such an attack will not bring about the downfall of the West, but the death of 99% of the Muslim population.

I think the Madrid attacks give insight into the power (lack of) of al Qaeda.

al Qaeda attacks a very minor player in the WOT- Why?

1- actual attack based on desire to recapture al-Andulusia.

or
2- this was the easiest target to hit; close to Africa/Morocco, long coastline on the Med, etc.

If al Qaeda is attacking countries that are contributing to the WOT, why not someone that plays a larger part in the war? Great Britain, or the Great Satan himself, the US?

I am sure al Qaeda is planning multiple attacks on GB & the US, but may be having trouble getting the assets in place to carry out the attacks. I find it very hard to believe that, 2 1/2 years after 9/11 and the liberation (mostly) of Afghanistan and Iraq that al Qaeda would not have used some assets already in place (in the US or GB) to strike a return blow. Of course, they could also be saving those assets until they can strike using chem/bio/nuke weapons. This makes the war against potential providers of WMD (NK, Syria, Pakistan, Iran- and please note that two players have been removed from this list-Iraq and Libya) vastly more important and URGENT.

Fred: No matter WHO is President if/when the WMD attack on US takes place, the results will be the same as I commented (IMO).

I don't think the War on Terror can be lost, necessarily. Rather, it's a question of how far they'll have to push before they unleash hell upon themselves. Simply put, the terrorists have entered a phase of warfare such that they have no measurable political objectives, and as such, don't know when to stop killing. This means that they will, eventually, cross a bridge too far, and get shithammered as a result. All things considered, I prefer to lance this boil earlier, rather than later, but the lancing itself is an inevitability.

Phil and BRD,

I hope you guys are right too. But obviously there was a political objective in Spain, and they achieved it. Can they destroy the West? Of course not. You're right about that BRD. Terrorism isn't terminal for us, but if we keep seeing the kind of retreat the Spaniards have indulged in, it may well become incurably chronic. The more these savages achieve or believe they've achieved their goals, the more encouraged they'll be to commit more and worse acts. Spain might have been a softer target than the US or Britain, but 3/11 was a pretty low-tech operation that seems pretty easily repeatable just about anywhere. All you need are people fanatical enough to do it. I could, of course, be wrong. I hope I am.

BTW, I think talk of nuking the Middle East or murdering about a billion people are utter nonsense. Forget the morality of it, it's just not practical. What would we do for oil for the next 10,000 years? And there are as many terrorists operating out of Europe as there are in some Muslim countries. Mohammed Atta was part of a cell in Hamburg. Richard Reid was part of a group from London. The 9/11 hijackers even got help from cells in San Diego. Do we nuke Hamburg, London and San Diego too? Gimme a break.

KH:
I agree with trent absolutely, and kerry's prospects are looking worse by the minute. the mainsteam media scents blood over the "ohboy, you've got to beat this guy" stuff. i just hope that kerry doesn't have a "premature implosion"
as a candidate and leave the dems with enough time to regroup before nov 2. during gulf II news coverage, i watched a dissident egyptian university professor who had just been released from prison give his opinion on the coalition prospects of success. he said (and i will never forget) "...you cannot force a democracy, but they are highly contaigous..". gives hope.

I add the following story from Newsday entitiled "Officials Worry of Pre-Election Attack" to the discussion. Quote: (If the US were attacked, support for Bush)...could diminish, particularly if Americans doubted Bush's ability to protect them or thought the war on Iraq played any part."

This is the URL for the story...

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-terrorism-election-impact,0,4359264,print.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

An Inside Job

I´m afraid what you saw in Madrid those days of March 2004 was not an Al-Qaeda attack but an internal coup.

The terrorist act was carefully planed to change the results of the coming election. The mastermind knew exactly how the spaniards would react and that the government would be defenceless.

i.e: Americans react just in the opposite manner: when they are attacked they unite around their leader. A mature behaviour that it doesn't exist in a new democracy like the spanish's, just 25 years old.

Secondly, both spanish national police corps, the National Police and the paramilitary Civil Guard, were informed by up to four confidents that the morocoans that put the bombs on the trains were buying explosives. The fact that nobody did nothing to stop them leads again towards a spanish political mastermind above senior officers in both security corps.

Yes, the Madrid Train Bombings were carried out using spanish explosives, bought to a man that was also a supplier of ETA. The car bomb than exploded in Santander a few months before 3/11 (blamed to ETA) was stolen in front of his home and was filled with his explosives.

It is just imposible that a random failure was responsible for this lack of response from the police corps. They were informed separately and redundantly. There are even audio tapes were police agents tell their senior officers about "those morocoans buying explosives", and they did nothing and let them go.

Therefore, the Madrid Train Bombings is an inside job, a coup. The Al Qaeda connection is a useful explanation to convince foreign observers avid of an easy explanation. The men that put the bombs were morocoans. Among them, El Chino, the leader, was a hash trafficker, and love the good living of the western world. None of them had previous experience with explosives and they were easily caught when the police wanted to.

Their death is suspicious too. The police surrounded them and brought a Special Operations team (SWAT). This team stormed the appartment where they hide at 9 P.M spanish hour, just two hours before arriving. Commonly, the operations team wait some time till the suspects get tired. Usually the assault begins in the early hours of the morning.

Well, this time the Special Forces did not wait. The morocoans blew themselves up, (I point out that for this to happen you need just one person that wants to) killing one special operations senior officer, so we will never know their version.

But the story does not end here. The policeman killed was mourned and buried, but his eternal rest was abruptly interrupted two weeks later when his tomb was opened and his remains partialy burned. The place where he was buried, in a small town outside Madrid, was kept secret so, who profanated his tomb? a muslim? most of the 3/11 suspects where killed in the appartment explosion. A friend of those morocoans? Probably not. Maybe a christian related to any of the 3/11 victims, very angry with the police he pays.

By now it is absolutely obvious that it was not Al-Qaeda. In Spain we still don't know "who" did it, although we do know that it was done to get rid of the previous government. But it is cristal clear that members of the police are involved, as well as ETA. And it is also quite obvious that the actual government is involved somehow, as they are doing their best to avoid investigations, they have been doing this for two years. Why if they are not involved?
You don't have to be very clever to realize that there is no Al-Qaeda. That is what spaniards were led to believe in order to win the elections.
You, abroad, could be very helpful, as in Spain, those who are trying to investigate are having big troubles.