Europe's price

Second rail bombing foiled

An interesting tidbit from this story:

Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported today that the Spanish Embassy in Egypt received a letter from an Islamic militant group threatening new attacks if Spain did not withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the letter, The Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, a group that also claimed responsibility for the March 11 attacks, threatened to strike against Spanish diplomatic missions in North Africa and the Mediterranean region unless Spanish troops are withdrawn in four weeks.

This is a low quality terrorist organization, sure, but the message is out among the dregs of the terrorist underworld: in Spain, we have somebody we can control.

The situation is similar to the predicament that Japan found itself in the late '80's. In several high profile cases in Latin America, Japan paid ransomes to get several kidnapped Japanese businessmen released by the criminals who took them hostage. As a result, Japanese citizens became the most sought after quarry of the kidnappers.

Kipling knew it:

It is always a temptation
To a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
'Though we know we should defeat you,
We have not the time to meet you,
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.'
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That, if once you have paid him the Dane-geld,
You never get rid of the Dane.

The terrorists will attack the US again, but they know that we are steadfast: our policy is unlikely to change. The more they attack us, the more we will fight them.

But in Europeans, the terrorists believe they can get real change. Europe has sent the message that it is weak and ready to negiotiate. That is a terrible message to send these people.

The terrorists will unleash their real fury when they learn that there is only so far that Europe is willing to go to buy them off.

Thanks to Tim Blair.

UPDATE: another group is threatening Spain too.Terror Group Warns Spain on U.S. Support

- posted by total @ 4/04/2004 08:13:00 AM .