Sunday, March 14, 2004
Spain: A major Al Qaeda victory
On the day of the Madrid bombings, I fired off the following email to a friend
"I doubt it was the ETA that carried out the bombings. Here are my reasons for thinking so.
1)They have not in past targeted people indiscriminately and they have almost always given warnings. In fact after the bombing of a supermarket killed 21 in 1987, ETA apologized and said that they had sent out a warning but that the police had not passed it on to the Media
2)The area that was targeted is working class and ETA is, if this means anything, a Marxist Leninist party.
3)ETA has almost exclusively targeted the well to do.
4)The ETA has denied responsibility and never done so before
5)Although some people have said that given the timing of the elections, it must be ETA. This explanation makes no sense. The Government in power has been quite hawkish when it comes to ETA and if it was proven that it was ETA, then the government would be more less be assured of victory. It makes more sense that Al Qaeda would carry out such a bombing at election time. The Spanish government decided to join with Bushies over the objections of 90% of its people, many of whom believed that going along with Bush would heighten the possibility of a terrorist attack. By carrying out the attack now and letting it be known that such an attack was in response to Spain’s efforts in Iraq, Al Qaeda would be dealing the Spain’s government a huge political blow. For this reason, if it starts to look more and more like Al Qaeda, the Spanish government may delay process of confirmation.
6)A bombing of this magnitude would essentially doom ETA
7)A group linked to Al Qaeda claimed responsibility"
It looks as if I was right. Al Qaeda carried out an attack 911 days after 911. That said, I must admit that I was surprised that it was enough to swing the election in favor of the socialists. The conservative party had a large lead in the polls and there was not that much time between 5 arrests and today's vote.
This is a major victory for Al Qaeda. Not only will Western populations be fearful of supporting current US policies toward the Islamic world in the future, but there is a very real chance that the new Spanish government will pull its troops out of Iraq. Put differently, if Al Qaeda plays its cards right, it could to certain degree manipulate Western populations into forcing their governments into doing Al Qaeda's political biding, whether that be leaving the Middle and East or scarping laws that ban religious head gear.
There is another thing that should be pointed out. Previously, Al Qaeda "chatter" has warned the US of an upcoming attack. This time there was no increase of chatter. If an increase of "chatter" is no longer a good indication of an upcoming attack, the US’s colour coded terrorism alert system will loose much of what current usefulness it currently has. Up until now, one of criteria authorities have used to decide what level of alert the US should be on is the level of chatter.
On the day of the Madrid bombings, I fired off the following email to a friend
"I doubt it was the ETA that carried out the bombings. Here are my reasons for thinking so.
1)They have not in past targeted people indiscriminately and they have almost always given warnings. In fact after the bombing of a supermarket killed 21 in 1987, ETA apologized and said that they had sent out a warning but that the police had not passed it on to the Media
2)The area that was targeted is working class and ETA is, if this means anything, a Marxist Leninist party.
3)ETA has almost exclusively targeted the well to do.
4)The ETA has denied responsibility and never done so before
5)Although some people have said that given the timing of the elections, it must be ETA. This explanation makes no sense. The Government in power has been quite hawkish when it comes to ETA and if it was proven that it was ETA, then the government would be more less be assured of victory. It makes more sense that Al Qaeda would carry out such a bombing at election time. The Spanish government decided to join with Bushies over the objections of 90% of its people, many of whom believed that going along with Bush would heighten the possibility of a terrorist attack. By carrying out the attack now and letting it be known that such an attack was in response to Spain’s efforts in Iraq, Al Qaeda would be dealing the Spain’s government a huge political blow. For this reason, if it starts to look more and more like Al Qaeda, the Spanish government may delay process of confirmation.
6)A bombing of this magnitude would essentially doom ETA
7)A group linked to Al Qaeda claimed responsibility"
It looks as if I was right. Al Qaeda carried out an attack 911 days after 911. That said, I must admit that I was surprised that it was enough to swing the election in favor of the socialists. The conservative party had a large lead in the polls and there was not that much time between 5 arrests and today's vote.
This is a major victory for Al Qaeda. Not only will Western populations be fearful of supporting current US policies toward the Islamic world in the future, but there is a very real chance that the new Spanish government will pull its troops out of Iraq. Put differently, if Al Qaeda plays its cards right, it could to certain degree manipulate Western populations into forcing their governments into doing Al Qaeda's political biding, whether that be leaving the Middle and East or scarping laws that ban religious head gear.
There is another thing that should be pointed out. Previously, Al Qaeda "chatter" has warned the US of an upcoming attack. This time there was no increase of chatter. If an increase of "chatter" is no longer a good indication of an upcoming attack, the US’s colour coded terrorism alert system will loose much of what current usefulness it currently has. Up until now, one of criteria authorities have used to decide what level of alert the US should be on is the level of chatter.
Comments:
Post a Comment
