Al-Qaida Earmarks

The horrific bombings in Madrid Spain yesterday killed more than 190 people and injured more than 1,200. This was obviously an al-Qaida operation with 10 simultaneous explosions within Madrid’s transportation system in a diverse country that was part of the coalition in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Al-Qaida and their ilk are frenetically pushing all available buttons of barbarism as Iraq heads toward a Constitutional government and their cells from America to Europe to Iraq are being slowly uncovered or neutralized. Let not one Spanish life lost on March 11 be forgotten. Let it remind us and keep us forever vigilant of the fact that we are at war. We need continued firm leadership at home and abroad. Attacks in Baghdad, Karbala and Madrid that were like those before in Bali, Istanbul, and Riyadh make it imminently clear that our troops abroad and our citizens at home have our work cut out for us as we fight terror in all its manifestations. Al-Qaida’s increasing agitation of late must mean that the noise around their foxholes is increasing. Al-Qaida’s extermination can only come with the resolve to persist in Iraq with our coalition until a capitalistic democracy is in place and maintained safe. If Iraq was so irrelevant in the war on terror, how is it that a network of suicide bombers sprouted in Iraq? If Iraq was so irrelevant why Spain, now, near their elections, when their Prime Minister showed great leadership in his support of the coalition in Operation Iraqi Freedom? The war on terror has many fronts and on March 12, 2004 it is more clear than ever that leadership, consistency, and resolve like that of President Bush is essential. On every possible front, the time is also now more than ever for moderate Muslims to put into high gear a national and global effort to find and expose those who may be part of an anti-American or anti-western terror network whether in America, Europe, Iraq or beyond. This column originally appeared at this link at the Arizona Republic.