Okay, everyone’s pissed off and screaming at one another over exactly who’s to blame over the bombing in Madrid and if the Spanish election is a sign of capitulation, but folks, I think you’re missing something here. Something very fucking important.
Let’s look at a couple of things here, shall we? The terrorists would have had, at best, two years to plan this operation. That’s assuming that they knew the US/British invasion of Iraq was a forgone conclusion. Which would mean that they not only had some kind of high level contacts with the Iraqi’s but also with the Bush Administration! Now, it’s pretty much been proven that Saddam wasn’t interested in hooking up with Al Qaeda, so we know that they weren’t talking to one another with Saddam telling Al Qaeda, “It doesn’t matter what the US does, I ain’t leaving.” Anyone want to claim that a US politician would be so foolish as to have any contact with a terrorist organization after 9/11?
And we know that the bombings were in retaliation for Spain’s support of the Iraq invasion, because people who were willing to mass murder told us so. Well, shit, call me crazy, but IMHO, people willing to kill innocent human beings are also going to be willing to lie. I might be wrong, I could be totally mistaken, but somehow I don’t think so.
But let’s forget all of that for a moment, let’s say that two years ago, Al Qaeda decided that they were going to “get Spain” for backing the US in a war that had yet to happen. To do this, they’re going to need operatives. If they don’t have any operatives “in country” they’re going to have to get them into Spain. And while I’m sure that Spain’s equivalent of the INS hasn’t succumbed to the level of paranoia US INS has, they’re no doubt working closely with US authorities in the wake of 9/11 and would be eyeing any potential immigrant with at least a slightly higher level of interest than they had in the past. This would make it harder to get operatives into the country, and you’re not going to want them to be carrying anything with them (like say, explosives or a copy of How to Make Your Own Bombs by I. M. Anutjob). In fact, you’re probably going to want them to arrive in the country, not knowing very much at all about the operation, since something could go wrong while they’re trying to enter the country, and the craven bastard might decide to rat you out in order to save his own skin.
Now once you’ve got your operatives “in country,” they’re going to have to do their best to blend in. Can’t have them wandering around looking at places and asking people, “Do you think that this is a good place to stick a bomb if you wanted to kill large numbers of people?” This means that they’ll have to get jobs, find places to live, and then select not only their targets, but also the method that they’ll use.
Once you’ve selected your targets, and your method of attack, you’ve got to procure the means to do so. I’ve never been to Spain, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that you can’t walk into the nearest hardware store, buy a couple hundred pounds of dynamite with no questions asked. Of course, you could always make or steal your explosives, and it’s possible that the authorities in Spain don’t keep the same level of tabs on the various components needed to make a bomb as they do here in the US, but do you really want to take that chance? After all, once you’ve done the deed, you can be assured that the authorities will be checking every possible source for your materials and all it takes one shopkeep with a halfway decent memory to point the authorities in your general direction.
The method of attack is pretty interesting. I believe that it’s the first time that Al Qaeda’s ever used cell phones to trigger bombs. Now, I used to have a job assembling cell phones, and I could probably figure out how to do it given enough time and materials, and it’s certainly possible that Al Qaeda could have found a manual from some other terrorist organization with instructions on how to do that, but no matter how they figured out how to do it, you’re gonna want to test it out. It’s no good attempting such a thing if the phone can’t get a signal in the target area. How you conduct the test, and how long it takes you is somewhat dependant upon how you’ve rigged the phone up. Also, you’re most likely going to want a very strong signal to the phone, if you’re going to be triggering the bomb by calling the cell phone from a safe distance away.
One has to wonder why they weren’t using suicide bombers. The Palestinian terrorists seem to have an endless supply of idiots willing to die for a chance at post-mortem pussy, so why couldn’t Al Qaeda find ones to do it? They had at least 19 of them in the US prior to 9/11, why not have some in Spain as well? I realize that you can’t get them out of vending machines, but surely they must have some guys willing to die for the cause, right?
That’s an awful lot to do in two years, don’t you think? Especially since not only has Spain been attacked by “homegrown” terrorists, but Spanish authorities have arrested a number of folks in the wake of 9/11 who had contact with the 9/11 hijackers, so it’s not like they didn’t know that they had members of Al Qaeda on Spanish soil. Now, let’s add in the fact that Spanish authorities had been arresting folks fairly recently who were in possession of bombmaking materials, so there’s going to be a lot of “heat” out there looking for people trying to do what you’re planning. Enough to make you want to crawl back under the covers and hide, isn’t it? Yet you go ahead and do it anyway.
Hmmm. Methinks the folks who claim that the terrorists were doing this as a “payback” for the whole Iraq war business are wrong. We know that the 9/11 attacks took close to a decade to plan and carry out. Assuming that Bin Laden and his cronies have some brains, they would have had to figure that the various member nations of NATO would fall in lock-step with the US after 9/11. They might not remain that way forever, but certainly for at least a year or more, they’d be on the US’s side. So, it seems logical to me that part of the pre-planning for 9/11 would include having agents scattered into as many NATO nations as possible. The idea being that once you hit the US, you follow it up with attacks on the other nations to show them that siding with the US will cost them.
However, this plan hits a couple of snags. The first being that a large portion, if not all of the US side of the operation gets taken down within days of 9/11 happening. Any agents that are left in the US have to keep a very low profile. Next Afghanistan folds like a house of cards once NATO begins pounding the shit out of it. Your agent in Britain, gets the crap beat out of him when he can’t get his shoes to explode on the plane, this causes the British wing of the operation to either be shut down, or to go as far underground as any remaining US operatives. In fact, all over Europe, your operatives are having problems, including Spain where a number of them are getting arrested.
So, you divert your attention to “softer” targets. You hit people in countries where one wouldn’t expect Al Qaeda to attack. This makes everyone jumpy, keeps your names in the headlines, and allows you to thump your chest while proclaiming, “We’re still around, and you can’t kill us.” Yet, this also causes the authorities in NATO countries to redouble their efforts to find your agents in their country.
Now, suppose you still had one NATO country with a large network of operatives in it. You’d taken some losses there, it’s true, but that country still had a large number of operatives able to act without attracting suspicision. Then, holy shit! They’re getting busted! What’s happening here? Okay, we’ll slack off a bit, nope, can’t do that, our organization’s being pruned pretty heavily. Okay, okay, got to make a slight change in plans. Screw the suicide bombers, we can’t afford to lose what few people we have operating in the country, so we’ll change tactics, so that they’ll be able to blow shit up, get away, and do it again. Damn! We’re still taking losses and no one’s been able to blow anything up! Okay, okay, we’ve got to do something because they’re really breathing down our necks. Well, there’s these elections coming up, so people will already be cranky and pissed off, we’ll hit just before then and hope that our boys can get away to do something later on. We can claim that it was because Spain backed the US in Iraq, nice topical tie-in, and they’ll never know that we had been planning to do something like this all along.
IOW, Al Qaeda had been planning to blow shit up in Spain all along, but they decided to act now, because Spain was getting close to shutting down their operation and then they’d not have a base of operations to work out of. The terrorists wouldn’t have given a shit if Spain was opposed to the war in Iraq or not, that was just their excuse to blow things up! If Spain had been opposed to the war, they’d have justified their attack by some other means, like the fact that Spain has a number of their agents in prison, or they just didn’t like the way the Spanish wear their hair! They’re terrorists, their job is to spread terror, to blow things up.
After all, why hit Spain? They’re a bit player in the whole deal, it’s the US and Britain who’ve got the hard-on for Iraq. Why not hit those guys since they’re the ones with all the muscle and fire power? If your organization is as strong as you claim, then why not a big, flashy explosion in the US or Britain? Why blow up a bunch of people in Spain, and announce that your operation in the US is 90% complete? Why tip off the Americans, who seem likely to bomb the fuck out of anything that looks cross-eyed in their direction, that you’ve got an operation running in their country? You know that’s going to increase the chances of any agents operating in the US getting caught, so why do it?
The only reason I can think of, is that you’re making a desperate gamble, stabbing at the enemy where he seems weakest, and crying “Wolf” in hopes that he’ll runaway scared. Because it doesn’t matter who the hell wins elections in Spain or the US, they’re still going to come after your agents. They may not use the same methods as the current administrations, but they’re not going to allow you to operate if they can do anything about it. They can’t. You’ve killed too many of their people already for that to happen. The best you can hope for is a slight breathing space allowing you to regroup your forces and maybe try again years later.
So this arguing back and forth over who’s responsible and what the outcome of this or that election will be is fucking pointless! It doesn’t matter, goddamn it! It really fucking doesn’t! Because Europe, the US, and large parts of Asia have their economies so intertwined, that it doesn’t matter how much one of them gets pissed off at the other, they can’t afford to alienate any member for very long!
For fuck’s sake! Why the hell do you think that the US politicians pulled all that “Freedom Fries” bullshit? Because that was all they really could afford to do to show they were pissed off at the French! They damn well couldn’t seize all French owned corporations in the US or embargo French goods! Nor could the French do that to the US, so both the US politicians and the French politicians came up with little bullshit ways of showing that they were pissed at the other guys.
All that really matters is that the terrorists get shut down, and it doesn’t matter who gets voted into what fucking office, they’re going to everything they can to see that that happens.
