A Vote for Terror

March 16, 2004 -- In a major setback to the global War on Terror, the Spanish electorate reacted to last Thursday's Madrid Massacre by throwing out the ruling center- right party and installing the opposition Socialists.

Until the catastrophic bomb attack, which looks increasingly like the handiwork of al Qaeda or an affiliate, the conservative Popular Party had been ahead in the polls.

The Post editorial board is right in every respect and it will find approbation among a large portion of the American polity to whom it directs this editorial. If the editorial is read at all in Europe it will not register because it is talking entirely at cross-purposes with the electorate in places like Spain.

The significance of the socialist election victory in Spain is not that it represents an appeasement of terrorism –that is obvious even to café society in Paris – but the true significance is that the left counts the dangers of appeasement as nothing compared to gains of shattering the American alliance against terror.

The battle in Europe is not between western civilization and Islamic fundamentalism but between a socialist vision of world government and unipolar reality. In fact, the socialist vision of the world is at war with our American view of western civilization. Our religious faith grounded in the traditional nuclear family is regarded as an affront to social architects, our faith in the individual finding expression in respect for property and capitalist liberty is a reproach to failed socialist economic theory and practice, and our national independence, standing as the principal obstacle to one world government, all combine to present a greater threat to the European Leftist than Islamic terrorism.

An incidental casualty of the Madrid bombings and election aftermath is Israel. The European left has long felt that world terrorism springs from the grievances of the Palestinians. It believes that America was struck on 9/11 because of its support of Israel. Unspoken in polite society is the undercurrent that America brought the attack on herself. The Europeans generally do not think they have a dog in that fight. They see America’s support of Israel as an extension of domestic American ethnic politics. In short, Europeans believe America supports Israel because of the Jewish lobby. There is no Jewish lobby in most of western Europe, in fact, there is an unattractive and growing anti-Semitism which parallels a growing anti-Americanism and for much the same reasons. But there is a giant lobby in Europe for an extra-national, one-world, socialist government.

The American alliance against terror is the principal obstacle to achieving that one world vision.

Much of Europe believes that if Israel goes away, terrorism goes away. If America does not support Israel, Israel must accommodate the Palestinians. In the meantime no European need die either in Iraq or in Madrid for American domestic politics. There it is folks: That is what the Spanish election was all about.

What about the upcoming American election, what is it all about?

Alas, there is a substantial minority party in America whose sentiments parallel those of the European Leftists and they are called “Democrats.” That explains the Democrats mindless bleating for UN approval and other manifestations of multilateralism. It explains the visceral hatred for George Bush- he changed the paradigm by casting the world back onto the old metaphor: Good vs. evil. Of course, Bush represented the old values before 9/11 but until then his worldview could be safely ignored to death or countered by traditional class warfare rhetoric.

Thus, the Democrats tell us one minute the war in Iraq is a colossal blunder and the next minute they tell us the war on terrorism has been “exaggerated.” To domestic Democrats, the whole damn “war” against terrorism is dangerous detour on the road to a giant one world Kibbutz.

Our election in November is as portentous as the sad experiment in appeasement just conducted in Spain and for all the same reasons.

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