12/06/2004 07:39:42 AM|||Nathan Moore|||

Is anyone surprised that appeasement has resulted in 7 coordinated bomb attacks in Spain at the hands of the Basque terrorist group, ETA? The argument that the prior appeasement act of electing a pro-Islamist candidate was toward a Muslim threat rather than a Basque threat rings hollow. Neither terrorist cause operates in a vacuum, and each learns from the other.

What possible history do all these cultures study? The terrorists don't need a working knowledge of history - all they have to do is react to the present opportunity. They are among the basest and most primitive individuals on the planet - it is an embarassment to Western Civilization that any member state is outwitted by them. But Spain has been hoodwinked through a culture that has developed an alarmingly dangerous sense of immediacy combined with ignorance, and has been attacked yet again.

We in the United States were a mere four percent from pulling a Spain in the last election. I thank God on a daily basis for that four percent difference, giving us the best chance for preserving our freedom, our culture and our way of life as we know it. The 9/10 world never really existed, just as the interwar years between World War I and II never were really "interwar". We have to operate in the now, with leaders who understand that the primal force methods of Islamism can only be defended through the more effective primal force of freedom.

|||110234110224559213|||Anyone Surprised?12/07/2004 04:31:01 PM|||honestpartisan|||OK, so you won the election fair and square and I accept that. But it's too much for me to take for you to claim that (1) Spain appeased Al-Qaeda by voting against a pro-Iraq War party; (2) This vote led to the ETA bombing; (3) A vote for Kerry would have been tantamount to the same thing.

Let's assume for sake of argument that the terrorist Al-Qaeda bombing before the election had an effect on the results (and who knows if it did; there were credible reports that the conservative government's premature blame on ETA swung the election as well). Why is this appeasement? Republicans argued that Bush did a good job fighting terrorism by pointing out that there had been no post-9/11 domestic terrorist attacks. This compels the conclusion for me that a terrorist attack would be proof of failure of a terrorism-fighting strategy, and would merit a vote against the incumbent party that let a terrorist attack take place. Which is what happened in Spain.

What possible evidence is there of any connection between the election results in Spain and the ETA attacks? ETA has been engaging in this type of violence for decades. Why does a terrorist attack during a conservative administration prove that it should be re-elected but a terrorist attack during its successor socialist administration prove that it should not have been elected?

I voted for Kerry primarily because I think the Bush administration failed to prosecute the war on terror, and I find pretty repellant any intimation that a vote for Kerry is a vote for appeasement of Al-Qaeda. It's fine to have competing strategies in combating Al-Qaeda, but it's inaccurate to deem a strategy different from yours as being "appeasement", with all of the pro-Al-Qaeda overtones of that term.