Lileks on Madrid

James Lileks says it best, yet again:

I thought at first it must be Al Qaeda, given the significance of Spain to these horrid farkwits; the whole "tragedy of Andalusia" thing figures large in their menu of grievances. You think: that was half a millennia ago. Move on. But it's not as if they are stuck in past history. There is no such thing as history for these people. There is simply a condition that must be changed. The world must submit. The aberration of the Reconquista must be reversed. These are obvious truths. They will come to pass. If you oppose these truths, you oppose God. . ..

I'm somewhat annoyed by the assertion that this act was "sophisticated," and hence the work of those brilliant stratgerists of Al Qaeda. My definition of sophistication is somewhat different: it's an unmanned drone flying over Pakistan, piloted by a guy in Florida, dropping a laser-guided bomb into the passenger cab of a truck full of Taliban. That's sophistication.

Read the whole thing--especially when he ponders advice to his daughter.