Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Fighting words from Christopher Hitchens in Slate. In a piece entitled "To Die in Madrid", subtitled "The nutty logic that says Spain provoked Islamist terrorism," the most moral and eloquent journalist of our times puts recent events in perspective:

"The Basque country, with its historic capital in Guernica, had been one of the main battlegrounds against Hitler and Mussolini in their first joint aggression in Spain, and many European families adopted Basque orphans and raised money for the resistance. It is tedious to relate the story of ETA's degeneration into a gangster organization that itself proclaims a fascist ideology of Basque racial uniqueness, and anyway one doesn't need to bother, since nobody any longer argues that there is a 'root cause' of ETA's atrocities. In the face of this kind of subhuman nihilism, people know without having to be told that the only response is a quiet, steady hatred and contempt, and a cold determination to outlast the perpetrators while remorselessly tracking them down."

Having established the historical background, Hitchens confronts us with reality:

"However, it seems that some Spaniards, and some non-Spanish commentators, would change on a dime if last week's mass murder in Madrid could be attributed to the Bin-Ladenists. In that case not only would there be a root cause — the deployment of 1,300 Spanish soldiers in the reconstruction of Iraq — but there would also be a culpable person, namely Spain's retiring prime minister. By this logic, terrorism would also have a cure — the withdrawal of those Spanish soldiers from a country where al-Qaida emphatically does not desire them to be."

As Hitchens points out, the logical and moral deficiencies of this thesis are chilling:

"Many Spaniards were among those killed recently in Morocco, where a jihadist bomb attack on an ancient Moorish synagogue took place in broad daylight. The attack was on Morocco itself, which was neutral in the recent Iraq war. It seems a bit late to demand that the Moroccan government change sides and support Saddam Hussein in that conflict, and I suspect that the Spanish Communist and socialist leadership would feel a little sheepish in making this suggestion. Nor is it obvious to me that the local Moroccan jihadists would stop bombing if this concession were made. Still, such a concession would be consistent with the above syllogism, as presumably would be a demand that Morocco cease to tempt fate by allowing synagogues on its soil in the first place."

So, how can we avoid "the stern disapproval of the holy warriors"? What must we do to be spared the "sacred rage of the Muslim fighters"?

"I find I can't quite decide what to recommend in the American case. I thought it was a good idea to remove troops from Saudi Arabia in any event (after all, we had removed the chief regional invader). But, even with the troops mainly departed, bombs continue to detonate in Saudi streets. We are, it seems, so far gone in sin and decadence that no repentance or penitence can be adequate. Perhaps, for the moment, it's enough punishment, and enough shame, just to know that what occurred in Madrid last week is all our fault. Now, let that sink in."

Al-Qaida's conditions for our being allowed to lead a quiet life are probably in the mail at this very moment.