Rolling Back the "Reconquista"

The Spanish intelligence service is "99 percent certain" radical Muslims are responsible for Thursday's terrorist attack in Madrid, which killed 200 and wounded 1400. Spanish police have arrested five suspects, three Moroccans and two Indians. (Reports from Germany claim four of the suspects are Arabs.) The Norwegian government's defense research group fingers Al Qaeda, citing Arabic-language documents, dated last year, that "outline a strategy to pressure Spain. . .to stop cooperating with the United States." (via Jeff Jarvis.) A Spanish newspaper reports the government now believes the bombs were unlike those previously used by Basque terrorists. And the Spanish Interior Minister announced that police received a video of an Arab man claiming the attacks in the name of Al Qaeda. The tape appears more authentic than Thusday's email purportedly from Al Qaeda, which at least one analyst says is a fake.

If Al Qaeda's behind the bombing, their strategy's a bust. As many as 11.7 million people jammed Madrid's streets and plazas, despite steady rain, in protest; there were similar gatherings throughout Spain. Yesterday's turnout is roughly double last year's anti-war rallies. And, other than a few moral midgets, most were "defiant," not apologetic, about fighting terrorism. (via Instapundit.)

The West didn't "do" anything to warrant Islamic terror. Muslims still nursing a grudge about the "Reconquista," ejecting Islam from Spain in 1492, forget that Moors invaded and conquered Spain in 711. Complaints about medieval crusades ignore that Muslims themselves seized the Holy Land by force (late 7th Century), destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, blocking Christian pilgrims (1009), and controlled most of the Mid-East until the late 19th Century. Claims that the British and the UN unlawfully "gave" historically Arab Palestine to Jews elide mentioning that Jews first settled in Palestine before 1200 BC, well before any Arabs, and that the last independent Palestine was a Jewish state conquered by Rome about 70 AD. Moreover, appeals to history eventually point toward the oldest written record--the Old Testament, accepted as accurate by Christians, Jews and Muslims, in which God unambiguously allocates Israel to Jews (see Genesis 12:1-2, 32:28).

Even were their history accurate, Islamic terrorism isn't premised on ancient "wrongs." Osama Bin Laden founded Al Qaeda not out of sympathy for Palestinians but to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan and overthrow the Saudi government. And Muslim terrorism isn't confined to the U.S. It's aimed at any secular, democratic government (and Arab nations as well). In other words, radical Islam targets Western civilization--the rule of law that keeps us free.

I'm glad Spain isn't asking "what it did to deserve this." Neither should we. No act of man or government could justify targeting and killing civilians. No change in policy, short of surrender, will stop the carnage. "Peaceful coexistence" is impossible--because Muslim terrorists would rather murder than share.

We just have to eradicate them. Before they destroy us. It's become a zero sum game. And, more than ever before, this time it's personal.