[link|http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040315/D81AHBR80.html|That's what it amounts to]. The voters of Spain have decided to punish their own government for the recent al Qaeda attack, instead of blaming the terrorists themselves. It seems they believe leaving be would have saved them this grief. It [link|http://www.angeflire.com/ca3/marlowe/appeasement.html|wouldn't have], of course.

This is a colossal mistake. They have done themselves and the cause of democracy great harm. They have allowed terrorists to dictate how they vote. They have submitted to the worst bullies in the world. In the face of an enemy utterly without mercy, they have shown weakness.

I predict that they will see more attacks from emboldened terrorists in the future. Not only al Qaeda, but the ETA as well. No one will respect them now. They will be seen as cowards, and as easy prey. This is a capitulation comparable with that of Czechoslovakia before the Nazis. It will reap similar fruits.

I also predict that terrorist attacks as a prelude to elections will become commonplace. Particularly in Europe.

In 1492 these voters' forefathers took their own country back from Muslim oppression. But that spirit has died. This is a different Spain, and may soon be a Muslim Spain again. And next time around, the rule will be far more brutal than the Moors ever were.

When World War II was over, the United States was generous in helping Hitler's victims back to their feet. In some cases, perhaps too generous. For example, ought we to have given France a seat on the UN Security Council just to assuage their national ego? We ground the aggressors into the dust, and then rebuilt them. This was a wise and merciful policy.
But next time, I think we should do the same with the appeasers and the collaborators. In their own way, they're just as dangerous. When the day comes that we rescue Europe from the Islamists and other terror groups that will have overrun that continent, let's be sure that they have paid the full price and have internalized the lesson. Let the egos of the effete be tortured by their own failure, until these egos implode. Then maybe we won't have to do it all yet another time.

The more ground we cede to the enemy, the harder it will be to defeat them in the future. I don't hope to be eaten last. I don't intend to be eaten at all. And I'm not going to be easy on those who made it harder. A coward is as good as an enemy.

The WWII arms production helped lift us up out of a global Great Depression. From zero to Marshall Plan in less than a decade. There's your manufacturing base. So long as can keep the suicide bombers from reaching our shores in great numbers, we'll be the last one standing when the dust settles. That which couldn't kill us will have forced us to become stronger.

And when it was all over, that Great Depression seemed a little less horrible in retrospect. In the thirties, it felt like the end of the world. Then the forties came along. So it will be again. Our current job troubles will be forgotten, in the face of a much greater horror. And then that greater horror will be swallowed up in a new, wiser age of progressivism without illusion. But only so long as we thoroughly defeat the enemy, so they will be properly grateful for our subsequent benevolence. The aftermath of World War II was much better than that of World War I because the second time around, we finished the job, and because the second time around, we made the most of the opportunity to rebuild upon the ashes to an improved design.

Right now the shit's just hitting the fan, and the self-declared voices of reason are soiling their underwear as if it's the end or something. This isn't the end. It's the end of the beginning. We've been here before. We know the plot. (Oh, and wasn't Spain trying to make nice with the forces of evil last time, too?)

My only lament is that there's going to be a lot of pain and death, which might have been avoided if... well, there are too many ways to complete that sentence. If George Bush and Bill Clinton hadn't wimped out. If Spain hadn't wimped out. If we hadn't cut the United Nations so much slack all those decades. If we hadn't built all those oil rigs in Arabia., and then let the Arabs get away with nationalizing the oil industry we built for them. If we hadn't let them get away with that OPEC bullshit. If the voters in Spain had had more of a backbone. So many opportunities to abort the coming holocaust, all lost.

But it's too late now. The consequences of short term thinking, wishful thinking and complacency have snowballed. Before this is over, millions will be dead. Just like last time, and the time before. Why? Because people haven't learned, or have forgotten. Why, wasn't that fool Ashton blathering about balance of power? He hasn't even grapsed the lessons of World War One!

This time around, let's never let them forget. Let's rub their faces in it, as much as we can. Forever. Because if we don't, people will forget. And then, in another half century or so, it will all happen again.