Pardon me while I vent: Fisking David Brooks

As part of my continuing war on people who are only too happy to smear the Spanish for availing themselves of their democratic rights, I give you David Brooks:

The Spanish government was conducting policies in Afghanistan and Iraq that Al Qaeda found objectionable. A group linked to Al Qaeda murdered 200 Spaniards, claiming that the bombing was punishment for those policies. Some significant percentage of the Spanish electorate was mobilized after the massacre to shift the course of the campaign, throw out the old government and replace it with one whose policies are more to Al Qaeda's liking.

If David Brooks is so familiar with Al Qaeda's likes and dislikes that he can tell which political parties AQ prefers, even in foreign countries, then it's difficult to believe he's writing for the New York Times and not working for the CIA. Or the Office of Special Plans. Oh, wait. They shut that down. And by the way, Dave, I haven't heard Zapatero say anything about withdrawing from Afghanistan. Does that tell you anything?

What is the Spanish word for appeasement?

What's the English word for distorting the truth to score rhetorical points?

There are millions of Americans, in and out of government, who believe the swing Spanish voters are shamefully trying to seek a separate peace in the war on terror.

There are millions of people all over the world who believe that the Bush administration has made a proper mess of the War on Terror™ by allowing itself to be distracted by the invasion of Iraq. A lot of them are American. Where's Osama bin Laden? And why is life for everyone in Afghanistan outside of Kabul so miserable?

I'm resisting that conclusion, because I don't know what mix of issues swung the Spanish election during those final days. But I do know that reversing course in the wake of a terrorist attack is inexcusable. I don't care what the policy is. You do not give terrorists the chance to think that their methods work. You do not give them the chance to celebrate victories. When you do that, you make the world a more dangerous place, for others and probably for yourself.

So no matter how corrupt an incumbent government may be, how much it lies, and how badly it's stumbled in the fight against terrorism, tossing it out in favour of a government that might do a better job would be something to be avoided? Keeping the incompetent in office would be a blow against terrorism while searching for a more competent alternative would be a victory for the terrorists? Don't look at me that way, that's what you just said. But I guess that's good news for George Bush.

We can be pretty sure now that this will not be the last of the election-eve massacres. Al Qaeda will regard Spain as a splendid triumph. After all, how often have murderers altered a democratic election? And having done it once, why stop now? Why should they not now massacre Italians, Poles, Americans and Brits?

Of course terrorism has affected elections in the past and will again in the future. The key question is how the elections are affected. Do you tie yourself up in knots trying to anticipate what the terrorists might want you to do so you can do the opposite? No matter how silly, distasteful or disastrous that choice might be? Is anything and everything the terrorists might want automatically wrong just because terrorists want it? Now who's letting terrorism dictate his choices?

Brooks goes on to somehow make the argument that if Afghanistan and Iraq are now destroyed, it's Spain's fault. Seriously. He then argues that Europe and the US will be farther apart than ever. Here's a clue, Dave: Bush started that process a long time ago. Somewhere in there he finds some room to blame the American administration for not doing more to sell Europe on the importance of the liberation of Iraq. No kidding. The liberation of Iraq isn't what they were selling and now it just sounds like a retroactive spin job. And that "crude cowboy stereotype", Dave? There's a reason for that. It's the image he seems to have cultivated.

And finally, here's his big finish:

This is a watershed event. It will change how Al Qaeda thinks about the world. It will change how Europeans see the world. It will constrain American policy for years to come.

It may very well be a watershed event. Europe may just take the lead in fighting terror because the US has blown it. As for constraining American policy, is that necessarily a bad thing? Why is the burden of proof still on everyone else when so much of America's policy has turned out to be based on things that simply weren't true, and so much of what it's done has been done so incompetently? Iraq's a mess, Dave, and it ain't Spain's fault.

There's nothing in the events of the last week or so that wasn't entirely predictable and trying to blame it on Spanish swing voters is utterly ridiculous.

Hat tip to Chris at See Why? for the link. If you're still with me, sorry but I've built up so much snark reading some of this stuff that I had to vent. I don't really feel any better but I think I'm done now.