You’d be a fool to predict anything, but I do think the odds of the next major Jihadist terrorist action happening in Europe just went up a notch. Al Qaeda and its multiple off-shoots have learned a couple of things recently. The first is that the U.S. will not cower before a terror attack. Bin Laden misjudged that one on 9/11, foolishly believing that he could move public policy in his direction by shell-shocking the American public. He was hoping for classic isolationism in response to the casualties of that awful day. Wrong. In fact, the opposite happened – a huge miscalculation on al Qaeda’s part, which led to the destruction of their client state, Afghanistan, and the removal of a strategic anti-American ally, Saddam. The American counter-attack also took Libya out of the WMD equation. But now the Jihadists know something else: that the 9/11 gambit can work in Europe. Starting with Spain, and wrecking the anti-terror alliance of New Europe, was a master-stroke. But it has an added effect of demoralizing the others – especially Italy. That’s why Romano Prodi’s astonishing disavowal of any force in response to terrorism was so devastating. Then Britain, where the terrorists may not be able to get rid of a Labour government, but may well try to inflict such a blow against Blair (in next year’s elections) that he is ousted in favor of a more amenable center-left alternative. Humiliating Blair will prevent a future prime minister from ever fully and unequivocally committing to the American-led war on terror again. France and Germany can be left till last – they are already deeply vulnerable to Islamist terror networks and in France’s case, there’s also a vast, unassimilated Muslim population ripe for exploitation. The alligator will eat them last. Let’s hope they enjoy the ride in the months left to them.
LAW ENFORCEMENT: John Kerry’s strategy against terror was tried before, by the Clinton administration. They even had Osama in their sights. So why was nothing done? Lisa Myers’ piece strikes me as an important one for the choice in front of us in this election.
THE PRODI AWARD: Why not set up a new award, after the depressing response to the Madrid massacre, devoted to those whose response to terror is immediately to run away, concede critical issues, and generally appease? Romano Prodi’s stunning comment that “It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists,” is such an obvious front-runner I’m not going to name the award for it. But in a close second place saunters our old friend Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair. Here’s a classic from his increasingly priceless ‘Letter from the Editor,’ (for April) noticed by Belgravia Despatch: “It’s about time Americans stopped worrying about the Baathists, Shiites, and Islamists playing footsie with free elections in Iraq, and paid attention to more pressing electoral problems we have here at home.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY I: “Even in a mass attack, there is individuality. Quite a few of the dead had never made it out of their machines. Those were the worst, because they were both exploded and incinerated. One man had tried to escape to Iraq in a Kawasaki front-end loader. His remaining half body lay hanging upside down and out of his exposed seat, the left side and bottom blown away to tatters, with the charred leg fully fifteen feet away. Nine men in a slat-sided supply truck were killed and flash-burned so swiftly that they remained, naked, skinned, and black wrecks, in the vulnerable positions of the moment of first impact. One body lay face down with his rear high in the air, as if he had been trying to burrow through the truckbed. His legs ended in fluttery charcoaled remnants at midthigh. He had a young, pretty face, slightly cherubic, with a pointed little chin; you could still see that even though it was mummified. Another man had been butterflied by the bomb; the cavity of his body was cut wide open and his intestines and such were still coiled in their proper places, but cooked to ebony.” – Mike Kelly, writing in the New Republic during the first Gulf War. The first anniversary of Mike’s death is just coming up and it’s worth remembering why he was such a damn good writer. I just wish I could read his columns on John Kerry this election season. Can you imagine what fun he’d have? Here’s a touching tribute in the upcoming Atlantic Monthly. Renewed condolence to Max and the boys, and his whole family.
QUOTE FOR THE DAY II: “But let us allow, for the moment, that the mass outcry against American hegemony is the voice of the true, the eternal and the compassionate left. Allowing that, we can put the best possible construction on its pervasiveness. Not just the majority of the intellectuals, academics and schoolteachers, but most of the face-workers in the media, share the view that international terrorism is to be explained by the vices of the liberal democracies. Or, at any rate, they shared it until a few days ago. It will be interesting, in the shattering light of an explosive event, to see if that easy view continues now to be quite so widespread, and how much room is made for the more awkward view that the true instigation for terrorism might not be the vices of the liberal democracies, but their virtues.” – Clive James, after the Bali bombing. (I don’t recall Indonesia being a major ally in the Iraq war, but I may be wrong). His words were wonderfully astute then and they bear re-reading after Madrid.
The Dish 