Hijacking The Ballot

Last week in Spain, Al Qaida's terrorists hijacked far more potent weapons than those jets that hit the Twin Towers two and half years ago.

On Sunday, ordinary Spaniards – appalled by the railroad bombings that killed and maimed so many of their countrymen on Thursday – threw out their own Government in dismay. But democratically. The timing of the Madrid atrocity, in the final frantic days of an election campaign, must have been quite deliberate.

Spain's political leadership stood shoulder to shoulder with George Bush and Tony Blair in the run up to war against Iraq. In doing so they alienated huge numbers of their own people and might have made their own innocent citizens a future target. Today two hundred of those innocents are dead. Two thousand more will carry the scars for life. And the People's Party that went to war has been voted out by the people. And soon, Spanish troops, sent to Iraq in solidarity, might be ordered home by their new Government.

For the poisoned minds that planned the bombings this may be a result beyond their wildest dream. For the rest of us it is a tragedy that we cannot comprehend, or easily come to terms with.

Europe is no stranger to terrorism. Spain has suffered violence for decades at the hands of a group seeking regional independence. Here in Britain the Irish terrorists wreaked havoc and death in the name of a similar cause. And terrible as both are, at least we could understand what they were after. At least there was a chance, as in Ireland, of persuading them to fight for their aims by ballot, not bullet.

What happened in Madrid will force us to change our perception of the terrorist threat. For these cold-blooded killers are beyond reason. They seem to want to destroy the order of the whole western world. The carnage, the bomb and the bullet will always unite us against them. But if they can hijack the ballot too, democracy itself is in peril - worldwide.

By Ed Boyle