On the neurotoxicity of airborne iocaine powder

[mmcirvin]

In September 2001, people all over the world, (largely) regardless of political affiliation, united in expressing sympathy with Americans and others whose friends and loved ones were killed in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. The period of essentially unalloyed good will lasted a short time; before long, some, especially on the political left in Europe, started speculating about what culpability Americans might bear for the situation that led to the rise of the terrorists and their attacks. And there was outrage, somewhat justified, that people would be bringing this up while Manhattan was still covered with the smoke of burning human beings.

In March 2004, terrorists possibly affiliated with al-Qaeda killed about 200 people in Madrid, in one of the most horrible terror attacks in Europe in recent memory. Days later some of the same people who had been outraged in 2001 started calling the grieving and defiant people of Spain cowards and appeasers, because they had voted out the incumbent prime minister in the general election.

This makes me so angry that I can hardly write about it coherently.

It's an exceedingly odd idea that failure to stop a large terrorist attack must be rewarded at the polls, or else the voters are handing a victory to the terrorists. It makes me wonder how unsuccessful and dishonest you have to be at fighting terrorists before it's OK for people to vote against you as a result. Or does the existence of terrorists make democracy inoperative?

Matthew Yglesias seems to be almost as spitting mad as I am over the whole thing. Jacob Levy, who is no lefty peacenik and probably disagrees with me about a lot of things, manages to get it about right and keep his head.

I should add that there is, as Photodude Reid Stott says in his thoughtful essay, a wholly legitimate concern that the whole business could hearten al-Qaeda and lead to more terrorist attacks. That concern is not what I object to; what I object to, and what Reid very carefully avoids, is the implication that this is an argument for voting for an incumbent that trumps all other considerations, up to and including the effectiveness of the incumbent at actually fighting the terrorists, not to mention his tendency to lie about it when he screws up.

Yglesias describes the conservative warblogger reaction as a dry run for the use of the popular "voting for Kerry will make terrorists dance and sing" argument in the US presidential election. It's amazingly weak when subjected to any degree of rational analysis. Radical Islamist terrorists, despite their impressive mass-murder skills, believe a lot of things that make no sense. If the defeat of Bush does make them happy, it will be mostly because of a primitive identification of the nation with the Maximum Leader. I see no reason that I should subordinate my own attempts to figure out anti-terrorist policy to the notions of such a person, and replace my own thinking about the war and security positions of the candidates with a simulation of an al-Qaeda whack job with the sign bit flipped. I'm going to vote for the guy who I think is the best at actually handling the problem, not the guy who is the opponent of the guy whose victory might tickle the putative delusions of an imaginary terrorist in my head.

Indeed, Reid Stott also points out something that I haven't seen bruited elsewhere: that to the extent that political events can hearten terrorists, use of the "vote for me or the terrorists win" tactic could actually give terrorists more motivation to meddle in the election. It is a disturbing thought.

Update: Second paragraph edited to prevent sarcasm misfire.

Comments

[bram.livejournal.com]

Right on man. Why can't I be that rational and passionate about politics at the same time??

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It did help that I spent about a day thinking about it before writing that.

On the neurotoxicity of airborne iocaine powder

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

Very well said.

Another thing I've noticed with those who try to argue that a change of government in Spain is somehow capitulation to terrorists is the assumption that Iraq = Al Qaida. (Maybe one of the articles you link to talks about this, but I havn't read those yet.)

Re: On the neurotoxicity of airborne iocaine powder

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

And, of course, Zapatero immediately made the proper noises about fighting terrorism, and I haven't heard any indication that he's going to pull Spanish troops out of Afghanistan.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I do think it can be reasonably argued that even if al Qaeda had no connection with Saddam before the invasion, the massive fuck-up there makes Iraq an al Qaeda playground now, so that withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq does in fact help them.

(On the other hand, I don't think that the Spanish troops were a gigantic piece of the occupying force, and I think that al Qaeda's motivations for attacking Spain were probably symbolic, as with most of their attacks.)

[tempest0402.livejournal.com]

"This makes me so angry that I can hardly write about it coherently."

You're not the only one. I've screamed myself hoarse at the radio on numerous occasions over this issue.

Very well said.