2004-Mar-26 ![[this day]](http://radio.weblogs.com/0103811/images/dailyLinkIcon.gif)
Terrorists, to be defeated, must be fought, not appeased
On March 11, Spain suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history and one of the bloodiest the world has ever known. Terrorists planned their cowardly acts with the express purpose of killing as many people as possible, in order to sow terror and strike a mortal blow against our freedoms and rights. It was a day we felt an immense pain, pain we will never forget. But it was also a pain we must all learn from.
Its lessons are simple. If we want to stop terrorists from murdering us and from dictating how we lead our lives, we must confront them. Some think the solution is to sue for peace, to negotiate with terrorists so that they might go and kill elsewhere. But that way is unacceptable.. Terrorism deserves only to be defeated. This is the debt we owe to the victims of the attacks...
Aznar also explains why his government at first thought the ETA terrorists were responsible:
In the hours that followed the attacks, our investigation focused on one obvious suspect, the Basque terrorist group ETA. It was a reasonable inference to make, and those who say otherwise are being either naive or dishonest. History has left us with clear evidence of ETA's sinister habit of killing during election campaigns. The terrorists always attempt to soak our democracy in blood on the days when we Spaniards go to the polls to reaffirm our liberties.
ETA has committed more than 800 murders, among other crimes, over three decades, and has sought always to weaken and divide our democracy, which has just celebrated its 25th anniversary. A few days earlier, the group had tried to carry out an attack with 500 kilograms of explosives, one that failed only due to the intervention of the Guardia Civil, the national police. Those detained in this failed attack had a map that highlighted the zone of the Henares Pathway, through which run the trains that were targeted on March 11. And it was ETA that, on Christmas Eve, attempted another slaughter at Madrid's Chamartin station, also thwarted by our National Police. And to continue the ghoulish catalog, the same terrorist group brought two vans loaded with more than 1 1/2 tons of explosives to Madrid in December 1999. Once again, our security forces foiled what would have been mass murder.
Finally, Aznar eloquently talks about courage, honesty, and loyalty — in a defiant response to those who have neither:
In my long political career, I have been the object of the sharpest criticism, both for decisions I have taken and for those I haven't. I've never been so arrogant as to fail to acknowledge those criticisms that were justified. By the same token, I'm not a coward, and I make it a point always to hit back at disparagement that has no basis.
In fact, honesty has been the essential principle of my entire political life. For this reason, but also for the respect and the loyalty I feel toward the office for which my countrymen chose me eight years ago, I want to be clear and robust: My government has told the truth. I can put up with political criticism, but I will never accept being accused of lying or manipulation. These are accusations that are intolerable, and which soil the memory of the victims...![[this item]](http://radio.weblogs.com/0103811/images/sharpPermaLink3.gif){kind=small}
This war is against Islamofascism
Something needs to be made very clear: The war we wage, the United States and its coalition of friends ... is not a war on "terror." Terror is an emotion. It is not a war on "terrorism." Like blitzkrieg, siege or ambush, terrorism is a tactic. And it's not a war against "evildoers," a creaky tag that conjures faceless heavies of a vaguely extraterrestrial nature, not the seedy killers who lurk in our cities' secret cells. The war we wage, the United States and its coalition of friends, is a war on Islamic jihad -- the spread of Islam by violent means -- and we wage it against Islamic jihadists who dream of death and destruction in their religion's name.[via DhimmiWatch]
The only thing I have to add is that there is no middle ground. This war is also against those who would applaud the destruction of the free world, those who support totalitarian regimes, those who tolerate terrorists in their midst, and those who capitulate -- e.g. taking their orders from the terrorists. It took fifty years (the Cold War aka WW III) to defeat the Soviet monster that Rooseelt let Stalin expand; and let us not forget that Red China remains to be eradicated. Let us hope that this war (and the coming defeat of all Islamofascist regimes) will not result in a compromise with evil forces that further enslave billions of people for decades to come. A free and prosperous Iraq will go a long way towards a better world, thanks to its liberation by Coalition forces one year ago.