Word: madrid
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When 200 innocents are murdered, more than 1,400 are wounded and people either don’t know or just don’t care, something is wrong. Last Thursday, 10 coordinated bombs were detonated on four commuter trains in Madrid. It is the worst terrorist attack in Spanish history and the most deadly in Europe since the Lockerbie tragedy in 1988. Yet disturbingly, many Americans seem relatively unfazed...
...bombing in Madrid reflects another element of American egocentrism that needs to be remedied. Terrorism threatens all nations. It did not take Madrid to demonstrate this fact, but it has devastatingly reiterated the need for international cooperation to combat it effectively. The United States needs to realize that it does not stand alone as a target of terrorism, and that it cannot stand alone in defense against it. I think this is largely understood, but in order to achieve effective international cooperation, the United States cannot casually disregard international sentiment as it did before attacking Iraq. A successful global coalition...
Evidence now suggests that al Qaeda carried out last week’s Madrid bombings in retaliation for Spain’s involvement in the Iraqi invasion and ongoing occupation. Before the attacks, Prime Minister Azanar’s Popular party enjoyed a comfortable lead in the polls. On Sunday they were ousted by incoming Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his Socialist party. Conservative pundits, like New York Times columnist David Brooks, have been quick to denounce the Spaniards for appeasing Al Qaeda. Their arguments are not without merit, but they are overly crude...
...difference is that Spaniards lashed out at their own government. On the eve of the election, for example, furious protestors marched through the streets of Madrid, chanting “Our Dead, Your War.” But voters were most angered by Azanar’s poor handling of the crisis. Distrust of the government had already begun to grow in recent months, as official claims that Iraq possessed WMD’s proved unfounded. This distrust only deepened in the immediate aftermath of the bombings, after Azanar assigned blame to the Basque terrorist group ETA, an act many...
...sources of Muslim anger at the U.S. - particularly the occupation of Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - which are exploited by al-Qaeda to rally support. Many European leaders believe the Iraq war has fueled rather than doused the fires of jihad. And March 11 in Madrid has given the Europeans a greater claim to a leading role in defining the West's response to terrorism...