3-11, 9-11 Linked: FBI

In case any Spaniards weren't sure, yes, we are all Americans now:

MADRID (Reuters) - The FBI has established the clearest link yet between the March 11 Madrid train bombings and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, a Spanish newspaper reported Sunday.

The FBI has told Spanish investigators that one of three men believed to have planned the Sept. 11 attacks from Spain in the summer of 2001 also gave the order to carry out the Madrid blasts, the newspaper ABC reported.

...

Hijacker Mohammed Atta, believed to have piloted one of the airliners that crashed into New York's World Trade Center, visited Spain two months before the attacks and met two men.

One was Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, who is being held by U.S. authorities, while the other was unidentified.

ABC said investigators now believe that third man was the one who in December 2003 activated the Qaeda cell that carried out the March 11 attacks, which Spaniards call "our Sept. 11."

There's an old joke about two hunters being chased by a bear. One hunter begins stripping off his clothes in order to run faster. "There's no point doing that," the other hunter says. "Naked or not, you can't run faster than a bear."

The first hunter strips off his shirt and says, "I don't have to run faster than the bear; I just have to run faster than you."

That strategy may work with bears, but it doesn't seem to be working with respect to Al Qaeda, as Holland has lately learned.

There are two theories regarding why Al Qaeda hates us. Bush's version is that they hate us "for our freedom," or, more loosely, they simply hate us for what we are and what we represent, including, as Osama bin Ladin so frequently lectures us, 1000 years of Muslim "humiliation."

The other theory is that they hate us for our foreign policy, or, more loosely, for what we do. And if we just change what we do, we can appease them.

The left attacks Bush for what they believe is his childish refusal to accept that if we just sold out Israel, Al Qaeda might be appeased.

But the truth is that both theories are true; they hate us for both what we are and what we do. And this makes Bush's formulation more true, and it makes the liberals' and Europeans' attempts to appease futile. Yes, you can change what you do, but you can never -- short of accepting Islamofascist rule -- change what you are.

Even if Euorpe accepted Al Qaeda's terms jot by tittle, there'd still be that nagging little problem of 1000 years of Muslim humiliation, and that minor little holy imperative to conquer the world and bring it into the Dar al Islam. It's no great victory to be butchered by maniacs who do so with a little less relish than they might reserve for Americans.

posted by Ace at 02:10 AM

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