I’ve been reading a lot of the opinions flying around in the days after the Madrid bombing and the subsequent shift in government power (the conservative prime minister was not re-elected, replaced by the Socialist candidate). As expected, conservatives are claiming “the terrorists have won in Spain” and their gloomy forecast is that if the U.S. support in Europe wanes, the terrorists will win the war. Part of me thinks that there is some kernel of truth in that statement, but then I remember that conservatives are focusing this on the U.S. action in Iraq. They seem to forget that the war in Afghanistan was supported by the United Nations, and that many nations have troops on the ground there. It’s the war on Iraq that has caused so muc international friction.

That said, I’ve been thinking about this concept of waging the war on terrorism at all costs, even if it means that terrorist wage their war in smaller countries, or even here in the U.S. And I think about the state things of things in Israel and Palestine, where the Israelis have been fighting the terrorists for decades. Parts of Israel are in a constant state of disrepair thanks to the fight against the Palestinian terrorists. The sound of machine guns, tanks, artillery fire, and bombs are an everyday occurrence. The question is, if the Bush administration is ready to fight terrorism (in all its forms), is it ready to suffer the consequences of turning other countries (and possibly our own) into a batte zone? Could we accept repeated terrorist attacks as we ratchet up the war on terrorism?

Posted on 17 March 2004