Seeing how readers responded, I see that I should clarify. My point was completely independent of whether the previous Spanish government was right to support the War on Terrorism or to support it by sending troops to Iraq. Let's suppose that it was a big mistake to support the U.S. in the first place. It is nonetheless a mistake to pull out now, unless Spain wants to get bombed by more terrorists. Withdrawing now-- especially without rhetoric about not succumbing to threats-- makes it clear that the Basque terrorists ought to repeat the bombing if they wish to achieve their own aims. Indeed, even the threat of such a bombing would probably work. If the Basque terrorists can credibly make the threat, the Socialists will give them whatever they want. Or, perhaps the terrorists need to do one big bombing so as to show they can keep doing it until the Spanish government succumbs. It seems to me that this could be a profitable strategy even for an entirely nonpolitical group. Suppose I start Terrorism Incorporated, with, say, $50 million in capital from a Saudi prince. With that much money, I could set up shop in some weak country--- say, Venezuela-- and do a demonstration attack in a major European city. That attack would not kill anybody---we'd just set off some detonators and show that if we'd put high explosive there too, some hundreds of people would have been killed. Then we send the extortion demands to quite a number of European countries.

The biggest obstacle to Terrorism Incorporated would be the United States. It would be crucial for the company to publicly declare that it had no quarrel with the U.S.A., and to take care that the threatened countries did not "buy" U.S. help. This could be practical. Suppose Belgium was the target. Belgium could buy U.S. help only at a high price-- some sort of public humiliation-- since the U.S. would benefit considerably, in geopolitics, from a terrorist attack on Belgium, especially if the attackers explicitly say that they are only targetting countries that are not American allies. Indeed, Terrorism Incorporated would be helpful to the U.S., though I don't think we could hope for actual subsidies.

Could Belgium get military help from France? Well, I don't know that French military help would be good enough, if the company headquarters were not in Europe or Africa. Even if the operation were militarily feasible, hypocrisy might be a problem. France has criticized the U.S. for unilateral military action, after all. Come to think of it, though, France has a long past and present record of unilateral military action, and the Press don't pick up on that, so maybe hypocrisy wouldn't be a problem in this case either. But the military obstacle remains.

Maybe the First World is more dependent on U.S. military force now than it was even during the Cold War. An army of 300,000 men couldn't stop the Russians, but it could hurt them plenty, which is useful in bargaining. An army of 300,000 men that can't get to faroff countries is no protection at all against terrorism, though. And only the USA has the ability to project force to faraway countries.

[in full at 04.03.18c.htm .      Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]

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