Fight Back and Vote
This is an Editorial from the Washington Post.
It address the problem with Politics
(and Bush just simply dosen't get it)
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The exact motives and identity of the terrorists who took at least 200 lives in Madrid have not yet been established. But the calculations of these killers are written in the blood that was shed in the Spanish capital's train stations.
There can be little doubt that the bombers had Spain's national elections in mind when they chose the timing of their atrocity. Madrid's 3/11 is a threat directed not only at Spain's admirable, hard-won democracy but also at all other free societies that dare to hold elections and let citizens choose.
That threat cannot be ignored in the United States over the next eight months. The Bush and Kerry campaigns, the politicians running for other national offices and U.S. voters must adapt to the likelihood that terrorists will use violence to disrupt or influence national elections here this autumn.
Any lingering belief that "it can't happen again here" also died in Madrid. Protecting the democratic process from disruption is now a specific and major duty on the agenda of fighting terrorism.
It matters greatly whether this revolting crime was carried out by the Basque separatists of ETA, the medieval obscurants of al Qaeda or, as now seems most likely, a North African offshoot of Osama bin Laden's brand of Islamic fanaticism. It matters above all because tailoring a strategy to defeat the terrorists requires knowing the nature and intentions of your enemy.
But the juxtaposition of Thursday's bombings, the suspicious claim of responsibility by al Qaeda and the defeat inflicted Sunday on Jose Maria Aznar's government forms its own narrative, however superficial or misleading. Terrorists have tampered with an election and brought down a government. They have punished Spain as a nation for participating in the war in Iraq. They have pushed their concerns and causes to the center of a democracy -- which will be seen by the unthinking to have recoiled in fear.
The Spanish story is more complex than that. The perpetrators cannot have predicted with any accuracy the political outcome of their crime. Other factors certainly played a part in the conservatives' downfall. But as Iran's ayatollahs showed in manipulating the hostage drama in 1980 to help bring Ronald Reagan to power, the specific outcome is less important than the action of influencing it. In looking toward the Nov. 2 general election, Americans need to construct a defense against the terrorists' narrative as well as against airline hijackings or train bombings. The Madrid attacks show that modern societies are vulnerable politically as well as physically. Here are a few starting points for hardening the nation's politics as well as its reactors and ports against assault:
? Civil defense exercises for responding to terrorist attacks cannot be postponed until after the elections as a way of avoiding criticism or controversy about political manipulation of the terrorist threat. The Spanish atrocity demonstrates the need for citizens to be informed in advance -- to be prepared, in fact, to confront and cope with disaster at home and quickly move to voting as scheduled.
? A national consensus on the importance of holding elections as scheduled -- even in the face of an event such as Sept. 11, 2001 -- should be formed now. The rule of law rather than the circumstantial judgment of leaders provides the essential stability of the American system.
? The two major parties need to come together to establish a bipartisan framework for minimizing the force of terrorist incidents aimed at influencing elections. A joint declaration on national unity in the face of terrorism by the party chairmen is one way of addressing that need.
The war on terrorism is a legitimate, even unavoidable, issue for both Democrats and Republicans. So is the balance of civil liberties and police power here and in other countries that are targeted, as the Paris daily Le Monde put it Monday, by killers "who attack democratic societies because of what they are: open, flexible, respectful of the rule of law." For the perpetrators, "the only measure of success is killing as many people as possible."
But the campaign organizations cannot evade their larger responsibilities in an election campaign that could in all likelihood be a target itself. George W. Bush and John F. Kerry have an obligation not to remain mired at the petty and tactical level to which their opening exchanges sank this month. Kerry dealt seriously and in detail with his view of homeland security in a speech to firefighters in Washington yesterday, but his remarks still reflected a disturbing raw partisanship.
Kerry and Bush must set the example for their aides -- and for their compatriots -- of being able to disagree on policies while projecting a sense of national unity and purpose that will not be held hostage by killers.
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