EDITORIAL
Tragedy in Madrid shows terrorism reach
The series of train explosions that killed nearly 200 people and injured more than 1,400 during Thursday's morning rush hour in Madrid are a horrifying reminder of the boundlessness of terrorism and how it can erupt in the most unexpected places.
While it remains unclear which precise terrorist cell or spinoff — Basque or Islamic— is responsible for the bombing, which ranks among the worst terrorist strikes since 9/11, it is imperative that the U.S. strengthen transatlantic alliances in its effort to curb global terrorism.
In the meantime, we must reach out to Spain as it mourns this enormous loss of life, just as tens of millions of people around the world mourned for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Spain has been one of America's staunchest allies in both the war against terrorism and the decision to invade Iraq, attracting threats from al-Qaeda.
And if there are some Americans who believe the Madrid train bombing will "wake up" Europeans to the problem of terrorism, we assure you, they already know — perhaps better than anyone.
For decades, the Irish Republican Army has set off bombs in England and Northern Ireland. Basque separatist groups have killed hundreds of Spaniards. Germany has battled with the Red Army Faction, an offshoot of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, that is responsible for killing about 50 people, including high-ranking German politicians, business executives and U.S. military personnel.
And Italy is still trying to eliminate remnants of the Red Brigade, a 1970s-founded group of Marxist-Leninist radicals who kidnapped and murdered Aldo Moro, an Italian statesman and leader of the then-ruling Christian Democrat Party.
Terrorism is nothing new, but the scale of its attacks are worsening for reasons too complicated and numerous to list. We must face this global crisis multilaterally and not succumb to panic and the divisive crackdown of civil liberties, because if we do, the terrorists will have won.
