If building a mosque near the site of the 9/11 remains is passive aggressive, what could possibly be an active aggressive way to wage war?
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"If the critical date for Americans in the new century is September 11, 2001, for
Continentals it's a day two and a half years later, in March 2004. On the eleventh of the
month, just before Spain's general election, a series of train bombings in Madrid killed more
than two hundred people. That day, I received a ton' of e-mails from American
acquaintances along the lines of: "3/11 is Europe's 9/11. Even the French will be in."
Friends told me: "The Europeans get it now." Doughty warriors of the blogosphere posted
the Spanish flag on their home pages in solidarity with America's loyal allies in the war
against terrorism. John Ellis, a Bush cousin and a savvy guy with a smart website, declared,
"Every memberstate of the EU understands that Madrid is Rome is Berlin is Amsterdam is
Paris is London is New York."
All wrong. On Friday, March 12, hundreds of thousands of Spaniards filled Madrid's
streets and stood somberly in a bleak drizzle to mourn their dead. On Sunday, election day,
the voters tossed out Jose Marla Aznar's sadly misnamed Popular Party and handed the
government to the Socialist Workers' Party. Aznar's party was America's principal
Continental ally in Iraq; the Socialist Workers campaigned on a pledge to withdraw Spain's
troops from Iraq. Throughout the campaign, polls showed the Popular Party cruising to
victory. Then came the bomb.
Having invited people to choose between a strong horse and a weak horse, even Osama
bin Laden might have been surprised to see the Spanish opt to make their general election an
exercise in mass self-gelding. Within seventy-two hours of the carnage, voters sent a tough
message to the terrorists: "We apologize for catching your eye." "
- Mark Steyn