Or Maybe Not

MARK STEYN doesn't think it was ETA. Neither do most of the Iraqi bloggers I read. Despite the dynamite fingerprint of the Basque group, the tactics and precision are very al-Qaida.

By the by, he points out that, after suicide bombers blew up a French oil tanker two years ago, a spokesman for the Islamic Army of Aden said, "We would have preferred to hit a US frigate, but no problem because they are all infidels." And he quotes Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."


And he wonders at something that I've noticed, too: the number of people in the West who simply don't believe that Islamist leaders mean what they say when they say such things. Even after they proved they could and would do it (Manhattan, Bali, Istanbul, Daniel Pearl). Wake up.

The Spanish Embassy in the U.S. has a user-friendly e-mail on its site. Send them a note of condolence. Send flowers. Remember what the Europeans did for us after 9-11.