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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (34082)	3/12/2004 2:51:44 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793846

Lileks on Madrid There’s a small padded room in my mind where I imagine the theories of the daft: OMG Bushitler did this, it’s part of a campaign to make us “afraid,” it’ll only get worse. That’s one take, from the foil-chapeau brigade, a decided minority. Then there’s the schadenfreuders: well, Spain supported the war in Iraq. Payback’s a bitch, eh? As if there was some sort of epiphany in the terrorist community: whoa, Spain is assisting the Crusaders now. I know it’s going out on a limb, but I propose adding Spain to the list of Western Christian polyglot democracies to destroy. All in favor, say aye. Of course one can say that the jihadists attacked Spain for its role, but to suggest that Spain earned this atrocity means that the two causes are morally indistinguishable. To some, they are. To some, the act of "resistance" has such a romantic pull they cannot possibly renounce the use of flamboyant violence - until they find themselves in a train station on an average weekday morning, ears ringing, eyes clouded, looking down at their shirt, wondering why it's so red all of a sudden. When I heard the Spanish PM’s address to his nation, I was struck by a repeated mention of “The Constitution.” Spain has one. So does Iraq. Spain was a fascist nation. So was Iraq. The appeal to a document is more than a nod to flowery words on expensive paper; it’s an appeal to a shared idea, a concept of justice that resides in natural law, a notion of civil society that derives its legitimacy from the assent of the governed, not the dictates of generals. Azanar said: To defend these causes the Government asks Spaniards to demonstrate tomorrow in the streets of Spain. Under the slogan "With the victims, with the Constitution, for the defeat of terrorism" demonstrations have been called in all Spaniard cities tomorrow Friday at seven in the evening. I wish those demonstrations to be as overwhelming as the pain we feel today, as civic as our patriotism that makes us feel solidarity with all those that suffer the consequences of terrorism's actions. Better in the original Spanish, I’m sure. You get the point. It makes me admire the Spanish more than ever, I’ll tell you that: after 9/11 the media – the American overclass – was all about pain and sympathy and vigils and candles; vengeance and retribution were not invited. Stand up and strike back was not a theme of those awful hours after 9/11. Partly because we didn't know who to hit. Partly because we realized eventually that we would be striking back, hard, soon. The national character best expressed itself by a brief period of introspective mourning, not brutish demands to level half the planet. Bush did not call for massive demonstrations to approve his desire to defeat terrorism. In American terms, that would have been unseemly. Grief first. Then war. Spain doesn’t have the luxury of 200 years of Constitutional rule. Young adults sitting around the dinner table look at parents who grew up under Franco; they might value freedom more than we do. We cannot possibly imagine losing it. They have heard stories of how quickly it can be lost.