Sunday, April 4, 2004
I remember watching one of those "Scared Straight" type programs on TV a long ways back. You know, where they take a bunch of Junior High and High School kids who are heading for trouble and they bring in a bunch of real prison inmates to basically scare the living bejesus out of them. So anyway, I remember one of the object lessons they gave the kids about what life was like in prison was as follows (this is not an exact description - I am big-time paraphrasing as I saw this show only once and many years ago): One of the inmates - typical muscle-bound scary prisoner-type - approaches one of the kids and starts berating him. He tells him something like, "I want you boy, you gonna be my bitch now. You don't wanna get hurt, you stand up and come here." Kid stands up. "Good, now you hook your pinkie in my belt loop and stand next to me." Kid does it. Now the head inmate steps forward and explains what happened. He says, "As soon as that boy started hearing orders and threats from that man, he shoulda gone at him and taken the consequences. He mighta got hurt right now, but then people would know he wasn't no pushover, and odds are he'd be left alone more or less from then on. Now that boy is that man's bitch, and everybody knows he's nothing but a bitch and that's how he'll be treated, not just by his new owner, but by everyone." Whenever I read the news coming out of Spain right now, I keep picturing Spain standing meekly with their pinkie in the Jihadi's belt-loop, hoping they're protected from the worst while posing right there with it, surrendering to it and inviting more from it.
More news on the Madrid latest Madrid blast (previous breaking item here): 
One policeman was killed and 15 others were injured in the blast, which tore the walls off a building that police had surrounded in the southern Madrid suburb of Leganes, Interior Minister Angel Acebes told reporters. He said that police had identified the apartment as being occupied by suspects in the March 11 rush-hour attacks on four commuter trains that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800.
Spanish authorities have arrested 15 suspects in an ongoing investigation of the rail attacks. Six have been charged with mass murder and nine with collaborating with or belonging to a terrorist organization. Eleven of those in custody are Moroccan.
Acebes said that while the investigation into the blast on Saturday night was still at an early stage, it was likely the men who killed themselves were among additional suspects identified in international arrest warrants issued in connection with the attacks...
Meanwhile, Spanish action has not been enough to ward off further demands, as the Spanish Embassy in Cairo received a demand that further attacks would come if Spanish troops were not removed from Iraq and Afghanistan within four weeks. This just after another bomb was found on Spanish tracks but failed to detonate. How would the demand have been taken had the bomb gone off, I wonder? What would the reaction have been?
(Via JihadWatch) Telegraph: Spain 'was warned of more attacks'
A Spanish diplomat confirmed last night that a letter signed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, warning of further attacks on Spanish interests in North Africa and the southern Mediterranean, was sent to the country's embassy in Cairo.
The warning was revealed as the Spanish interior minister, Angel Acebes, confirmed that the explosives used to make a bomb planted under a train track 40 miles south of Madrid on Friday were the same type used in last month's train bombings, which killed 191 people.
"The explosives are the same as those used on March 11, but the investigation is continuing to try to determine who is behind it," Mr Acebes said. Yesterday, as trains began to run again on the country's rail network, hundreds of police officers guarded main lines while dozens of helicopters patrolled the skies overhead. The network was earlier closed after a rail worker discovered the 26lb bomb next to the high-speed line from Madrid to Seville during a routine inspection.
Mr Acebes said that the bomb - made of Goma 2 Eco dynamite - failed to detonate because it had no trigger, suggesting that those responsible for planting it may have been scared off by security guards. He said that investigators were still unsure whether the detonator attached to the unexploded bomb was similar to those used in the Madrid explosions. In both cases, however, the detonators were similar to ones commonly used in the mining industry.
Spain's incoming prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has promised to pull 1,300 Spanish troops out of Iraq if the United Nations does not take charge there by the end of June, undoing the policy of outgoing pro-American Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Last week, however, Mr Zapatero announced that Spain would double its presence in Afghanistan, sending in another 250 troops in defiance of the militants' warning...
Does Zapatero really think the Jihadis care whether the troops are there under the UN or not? Now, it's certainly possible that Zapatero understands this, and just wishes a strong stand under a different banner, but his rhetoric, and his choice of Foreign Minister belie that view. More likely, he is just looking for someone else's belt-loop to hide behind - and it won't work.
Update: Franco Aleman addresses the faux backbone issue at Tim Blair's blog here. Also see Franco's excellent post here on some of the truth behind the "Aznar lied" canard. (Both links via Roger L. Simon.)
