Free Republic

It has long been understood that the Spanish socialists shamelessly exploited the March 11, 2004, terrorist attacks in Madrid’s train station for political advantage. They did so with palpable disregard for a frightening fact: The far-reaching geostrategic repercussions of that incident...gave those seeking similar results elsewhere every incentive to engage in violence against other democracies’ electoral processes. But what if the perpetrators were neither Islamofacists, as the winning socialists immediately asserted, nor the Basque terrorist organization known as ETA, as the government of José Maria Aznar initially (and fatally) assumed? On May 16, the Madrid daily El Mundo published a...

The hideous massacre in Madrid last week led to many responses, one of which was the Spanish electorate's decision to throw out its center-right government in favor of a solidly socialist administration bent on removing Spanish troops from Iraq. Here is the response of one European newspaper, the London Guardian, and my comments. Life stopped in the winter drizzle of Madrid yesterday. Offices, shops and cafes emptied, as funeral candles were lit in moving scenes of solidarity. Black bows of mourning appeared on shop windows, the cabs of commuter trains, and on lapels. People looking at the wreckage in Atocha...