MADRID BOMBINGS….Robert Tagorda has a pretty good roundup of the evidence that today’s horrific terror bombings in Madrid were the work of al-Qaeda (or an affiliated group) rather than ETA, the obvious suspect.
The facts are still murky, of course, but I have to admit that the more I think about it the more reasonable it seems that possibly the ETA was not at fault after all. Not only was this bombing far bigger and more coordinated than anything they’ve done before, but you’d think that even fanatical Basque terrorists would realize that four days before an election is not a good time to do something like this.
Then again, I’m not a fanatical terrorist, so what do I know about how they think?
In any case, if it does turn out to be al-Qaeda, I wonder how that will change things? It’s been something of an article of faith in America that if 9/11 had happened in Europe there wouldn’t have been so much resistance there to the Iraq war. These train bombings aren’t 9/11, of course, but they’re plenty bad. Will it affect European opinion much about America’s approach to fighting terrorism?
