It may not have been them. They've denied responsibility, which they normally do not od, and the M.O. more closely fits with that of al-Qaeda.

Sorry, not sure where that strange "od" came from in the middle of that sentence. Probably al-Qaeda too. Or not enough coffee reaching my fingertips yet.

I'm with Stu on this. Generally, when the Basques do something, their political wing is right out there claiming responsibility. I'm more inclined to believe that Al-Qaeda or even some other new group is behind this horror. But I admit to having too little data as yet to really form an opinion. Let's just agree that the act was heinous and we should support efforts to track down and eliminate those responsible.

I hope I'm wrong, but I highly doubt they could have run an operation like this and kept it quiet. You are talking about 6-10 people involved in this to pull it off.

This has other orgs written all over it. I hope I'm wrong so this can be taken care of internally in Spain.

The scale of this atrocity makes me wonder whether it's al-Qaeda rather than ETA. The lack of a claim of responsibility does too.

The curious thing is that in recently months, al-Qaeda has mainly killed muslims in muslim countries.

DY

maybe they realized that this time they'd gone too far. al-Qaeda denied 9/11 initially, as i recall. if it was them, though, it's just more proof that all of the terrorist leaders are just overblown cowards when it comes down to it. let your friends carry the bomb, and then you deny responsibility.

My Aunt is travelling in Spain. She's probably alright, but we haven't heard for sure. My mother is tearing her hair out.
Fucking bastards!

Let me get this straight, you had sympathy for these terrorists before this? Whatever.

Not all Basque separatists are terrorists.

But if they're producing this kind scumbag to this level, their movement is too sick to have any sympathy for.

I was discussing this with Deb earlier. The Basques were a group I had some sympathy for, as far as being able to have their own distinct country. Their methods got out of hand and were never sympathetic past, maybe, killing some Franco administration figures initially.

If it's them, forget any more sympathy. Make them cower and die now. Make them wish they had never blown any chance they ever had of founding a Basque nation.

Spain wouldn't be that weird a place for al Qaeda to be focusing its energy. Remember the Cordovan Empire...

Since Franco's demise, the ETA hasn't been deserving of anyone's sympathy. They've killed more than 800 people and they are now no more than a criminal gang. Saying the ETA has the support of a minority of Basques is like saying Timothy McVeigh has the support of a minority of Americans. The ETA do not represent anyone except their own criminal enterprise.

Don't let'em fool you with their oppressed minority shtick.

I'm guessing al-Qaeda. The date is evocative; exactly six months from September 11.

This is just my own personal guess, but I think what we are seeing is an indication that one hand is starting to wash another. One group does the dirty work of another just to throw more chaos into the mix. That way ETA gets what it wants but doesn't have to take the negative domestic political fallout of such an attack. Nobody yet knows who did this and thus makes a targeted search for the perpetrators much more difficult.

Who ever it was, they should fry. God Bless the souls lost today.

I wouldn't be surprised if it were al-Quaeda. It fits their MO, and don't they want the 'Caliphate' to include Moorish Spain?

Either that, or they've been giving lessons, which is not unlikely.

Yeah I am leaning towards thinking it was Al Queda, either directly or helping ETA. If ETA is responsible they have just put semex on their foot and pulled the trigger. Time will tell however.

Could be ETA, could be AlQ, could be any of a dozen or more alphabet groups. Who cares? If your home is infested with rats and one bites the baby in her crib do you search out the culprit or do you exterminate all the rats?
Hunt down all terrorist groups, no matter who, and kill them.

And just how exactly does American "sympathy" have anything to do with Basque separatism vs Spanish territorial integrity? Sympathy, plus 26 cents, buys you a cup of senior coffee at McDonald's.

Just wait until some Latino group in any of the states from Texas westward to California start championing their remembrance of the Gringo conquest of their lands in 1836 and 1846, and announce their strong desire for independence by setting off bombs on the new light rail systems of Los Angeles or San Diego.

Basques, Kurds, Palestinians, al Qaide, Chechens, Irish, Tamils, Quebecois, you name it. They all have their own pet grudge for blowing off bombs in someone else's big city, just to remind the world of their presence.

Anyone who thinks the USA is permanently immune to all this is walking around with his head up his ass.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

"Spain wouldn't be that weird a place for al Qaeda to be focusing its energy. Remember the Cordovan Empire..."

And a self-proclaimed coalition ally in Iraq. This has Al Qeada written all over it. I haven't been to Madrid but the last time I was in Barcelona (even before 9-11), transportation hubs were patrolled by well-armed police. So they packed the trains elsewhere and detonated them at the stations.

Interesting, the 'Breaking News' line on FoxNews.com is "Spanish Cops Find Arabic Tape in Van"

Check

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040311-112725-1601r

Looks as if the al-queda likelyhood is getting stronger, unless of course the Bush admin made up the letter and dropped it off in a little black helicopter.
HERE.

Basques, Kurds, Palestinians, al Qaide, Chechens, Irish, Tamils, Quebecois, you name it. They all have their own pet grudge for blowing off bombs in someone else's big city, just to remind the world of their presence.

Arnold I respect your knowledge, insight, and outlook on things, but if I may ask one thing from you. Please don't include "Irish" in that list. If you wish list the IRA or any number of groups but not just Irish. Maybe I am nitpicking or being sensitive of my heritage, but it is not all Irish who have resorted to bombings and killing in order to remove the English from our lands. (There I go again saying our land Guess I am the Plastic Paddy my grandfather always said I would become.)
Cheers!

Everyone should by now know that the note from Al Queda was found (I never know how the bastards spell their name), speaking of "crusaders". Yes, it was about taking back land once owned by the faithful. Remember, at one time, much of the population in Spain was Muslim.

Spain would prefer it to be Basques because that sounds less scary. They've dealt with such things for centuries from the Basques, but a jihad-type war is something they have not seen since the middle ages. They would prefer, naturally, to have their own violence be of a domestic nature rather than draw them into the religious wars that are occurring in Africa and the Middle East.

This is truly a monstrous act. I only hope that Spain is able to deal effectively with this threat, either on its own or with willing allies. I know the US will be one such if it comes to it. But really, if anybody's overly surprised by this I'll be bitterly amused, but not disgusted. The terrorists are reaping the whirlwind. Long may it um blow.

Well now, James Doney,

Were it not the Irish occasionally setting off a bomb in crowded London, who would it be then? Dissafected Picts or Saxons? Maybe a Yank or two not finding fish, chips and warm beer to their liking?

Of course, not all the Arabs send their children off for a Jerusalem stroll with semtex or C4 belts strapped around their waists. Most Basques are probably more interested in sheep-herding, olive growing, or whatever they do in their part of Spain. No doubt a there are goodly number of folks who are Tamils but are not Tamil Tigers.

And very few Irish commit terrorism in London for the dubious purpose of adding some millions of Orangemen and their six ungovernable counties to the lands of the Irish Republic. (Or do you really want a bunch of Reverend Ian Paisleys to sit in the councils of government at Dublin?)

Or is it something else you had in mind when you wrote about "removing the English from our lands"?

But everybody pays the price for the sins of their history. Ask any German who has to remind that his grandfather may have fought for Adolf Hitler, but he would not have. (Sure. He would have argued with the Gestapo men all the way to Dachau.) Ask any Italian-American who had to live down the memory of the Black Hand and La Cosa Nostra. Or any Jew still blamed today for crucifying Jesus.

But you have my sympathy. I too would not like to have lived under the rule of the English. (My late mother was one of them, and now and then reminded me of their natural superiority; albeit one not based on the over-cooked vegetables she had learned to cook in Barrow-in-Furness and Southampton.)

Cheers to you too. But no more allusion to drinking on this of all blogsites, things being what they are.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Points well taken Arnold.

albeit one not based on the over-cooked vegetables she had learned to cook in Barrow-in-Furness and Southampton
A very key and astute observation. Lol. Never again will I trust an english chef, well at least not anything followed by the word pie. (Kidney, Eel, etc..)

And as to the salutation at the end of my comment I meant it in no way to be viewed the way I should have known obviously it would be by those on this site. I apologize, its just my way of giving encouragement or congratulation along with a goodbye. No offense meant and none taken I hope.

A Dhia, deonaigh dom an suaimhneas chun glacadh le rudaí nach féidir liom a athrú, misneach chun rudaí a athrú nuair is féidir, agus gaois chun an difríocht a aithint.
(The Serenity Prayer in Gaelic)

No offense ever taken, James. And well done with the mother tongue.

Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why almost everyone in Ireland speaks English, rather than Gaeilge. On the other hand, so too do the Scots in regard to Gaidhlig and the Manxmen in regard to Gailck.

Your very remote cousins among the continental Gauls should have kept control of Rome, when they seized it, briefly, in 390bc.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why almost everyone in Ireland speaks English, rather than Gaeilge.

From a short summary of Irish History Irish history:

"Starting with the Kilkenny Statutes and the Penal Laws in the 1600's and early 1700's, it was against the law to use the native Irish. Teaching of Irish was forbidden by the English and was done so in an effort to subjugate the Irish to British rule and law. They were forbidden to own land of more than 31 acres. The Irish were also forbidden to educate their children. The term hedge row schools arose in this time, with children being educated in the seclusion of the large hedges you still see in Ireland, so they all could scatter quickly if they learned an authority was coming"

Well, Mary, that was news to me.

Sort of the way our country treated the Indians after they stole their land and got them onto reservations. (Now they're getting even with us by setting up tribal-owned gambling casinos in one state after another. Finally getting some American street smarts.)

I'm sure I would have tried to shoot the bastards' heads off from behind those same hedgerows where they were surreptitiously teaching the children. (Not while classes were in session, of course.) But I suppose the Brits wouldn't have allowed the Irish to have firearms, either.

I suppose this all began with the rule of Cromwell. But on the other hand, you would probably tell me it all began a lot earlier.

For that matter, I often wonder just what the British interest was at all in Ireland, which they tell me is a relatively poor and resourceless place.

I learn something new every day on this blogsite.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Not to be forgotten the Bagpipes were also outlawed as a weapon of war.

Damn the English.

Mary thank you for the history, what you have brought up is but a drop in the bucket in the acts of forced assimilation from the English.

Arnold they wanted the potatoes. It is the only thing the english can cook to death and still have taste good enough to eat.

To all of those of you actually trying to discuss the tragedy in Spain today I apologize for highjacking the thread. ;-)

It has been a real eye-opener watching the gun jumpers condemning ETA on zero evidence except geography.

Here's a thought: Who cares what any idle speculator thinks? The idea that every event, every news report requires an immediate response placing blame so those inclined to the rush to judgment mindset can rally round and shout huzzah and join the early mob, leaves me cold.

The Blogosphere at times appears to be a clueless echo chamber of ill-informed guys with a desire to share with the world the fact they have too much time on their hands and not enough reflection in their head.

Evidence be damned, full speed ahead.

Don't worry about it, James. You and Mary have both aroused my curiosity over the history of Ireland and the English role there. So I have been furiously googling everything I can find to read about it.

It turns out the Kilkenny Laws were enacted relatively early, in the middle of the 14h century, when the English crown was beginning to feel insecure about the Norman lords whose families had settled there some 200 years earlier and were in the process of becoming -- would you believe -- Irish. Also, I learned that the English interference with Ireland between with the reigh of England's king Henry II in the middle of the 12th century.

What amazes me is that large numbers of Irish fought, bled and died for the British Empire in World War I and its smaller colonial wars around the world. Fought damned well, too, as the records show.

You know, the Scots had a historical relationship with the English that sort of mirrored what happened in Ireland. Just that that there was no combination of William Wallace and Robert Bruce to lead a successful struggle for independence in Ireland.

James, you are truly correct about the potatoes. That's why the Brits began converting them into 'bangers and mash' (sausages and mashed potatoes).

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

If you are interested in some more reading on the subject Arnold I have a book for ya. It was the text book (Although it isnt a textbook at all really) used in my survey course of Irish History I took my first semester in College (Took it survey cause it was cheaper and I didnt have to worry about a grade. Should be right up your alley seeing as how you seem to a mental sponge with love for information.

The Making of Ireland by James Lydon

It truly is the only piece of literature I have found that looks at the entire history of Ireland from ancient times to the present.

As to the Bangers and Mash I actually havent had any bad experiences there, Beef Wellington however....

These talks with you are a real joy to me I wanted you to know that. If you are ever in Central Florida and wouldn't mind spending time with an immature college kid let me know. I will gladly buy you a dinner today for some more wisdom tomorrow. ;-)

Arnold, old chap. If u hadn'd noticed Rep of Ireland is in fact an indipendent nation with a very prosperous economy, thanks to the legend Mick Collins, and last time i looked Scotland was still part of britain.