When I heard of the Socialists' victory in Spain, I was almost as disgusted as when I read yesterday morning's Peter Quaranto op-ed. Let's just look at this from the facts. There are only two plausible scenarios - either ETA did it, or Al Qaeda, or some splinter group thereof, was responsible. Either way, the motives of the Spanish socialists, and those who voted for them, are warped beyond comprehension.
1. If it was ETA, then Aznar's government was right to blame them first. Furthermore, if Basques were responsible for the bombing, how can it be said that Spain's participation in the Iraq occupation brought terrorism to the kingdom, and thus the Popular Party needed to be punished?
2. If it was the Islamists, the logic is even more inane. Al Qaeda attacks Spain because Spanish troops helped to occupy (not invade) Iraq? Why, how could this be, if there is supposedly no connection between the war in Iraq and the war on terror?
The results of this election were most definitely altered by the bombings. The Popular Party was cruising along, five points ahead of the Socialists. They ended up losing by six percent. That's an 11-point swing in less than a week, and doesn't happen if there's no attack; this is incontrovertible.
Either way, it is a victory for terrorists. The far Left in Europe is shamelessly, and traitorously, exploiting this situation. Not a day after his party won, the Socialists' leader had announced that he would pull Spanish support for the occupation, called the war a "disaster," and publicly proclaimed that the ties between Spain and the United States should be weakened.
Unbelievable. Here was an opportunity for liberalism to prove that it was committed to defeating this century's greatest evil, and its response was nothing more than appeasement.
Dan OrnelalsseniorDillon HallMar. 16
