I’m somewhat annoyed by the assertion that this act was “sophisticated,” and hence the work of those brilliant strategerists 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. Synchronizing watches on detonators is not exactly all that tough.
Nope. He also observes:
To some, the act of “resistance” has such a romantic pull they cannot possibly renounce the use of flamboyant violence – until they find themselves in a train station on an average weekday morning, ears ringing, eyes clouded, looking down at their shirt, wondering why it’s so red all of a sudden.
I wonder if either of the women dressed as suicide bombers in this photo from Madrid last year was within earshot of yesterday’s blasts. As Wagner James Au writes in the email reminding me of the photo:
What was striking to me then was not how morally depraved these women were (though they are certainly that. What disturbed me so much is how their little bit of performance art didn’t provoke the slightest reaction, from their fellow Spaniards.
Look at the photo. They must be surrounded by thousands of people, but no one is shouting at them; no one is rudely gesturing at them; no one, in other words, seems enraged at this open glorification of terrorism. If anything, they’re *blase* about it. And this seems to be reflective of a common assumption, that *of course* bombing innocent civilians in Israel is a legitimate means of protest. So what are they to make of this equally savage violence yesterday, now that it’s directed at them? And what implicit message were the Spanish anti-war protesters sending to terrorist groups of all stripes, when they essentially announced that they approved of these methods as an acceptable means of pursuing grievances?
This is not a shoe-on-the-other foot observation; I’m not asking them, like many of them asked us after 9/11, to wonder, “Why do they hate us?” Rather, as we sympathize with the victims and demand justice for their perpetrators, I think we should also ask, as should they, “Why did so many of you support horrific actions like this so recently?”
The answer is simple: Those two women, like some of the other protesters, weren’t antiwar. They were on the other side. I wonder if they still are?
UPDATE: Barbara Skolaut emails: “Be interesting if some enterprising reporter found them and asked them. But I’m not holding my breath.”
It would be interesting.