Terrorists Win

[billroper]

And now, we get to mark 3/11 down in the calendar, right next to 9/11, except that we get to log 3/11 as a major victory for the terrorists.

We don't yet know for sure exactly who was responsible for the Madrid bombings. We do know that someone claimed credit on behalf of Al Qaeda and we do know that the Popular Party, which was in power and expected to remain in power prior to 3/11, was voted out in favor of the Socialist Party, which had announced its intention to do exactly what Al Qaeda wanted them to do.

You get the behavior that you incent for. The Spanish electorate has now provided a powerful incentive for terrorist groups to carry out bombings in advance of elections as a tool to influence the results of the elections. One of my co-workers -- who was opposed to the Iraq war -- noted that the Spanish electorate had just done the world no favor with this vote.

And I have to agree. Time for everyone to remember to keep their heads down, because the tactic has now worked once and will likely be tried again.

Comments

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Did you ever hear about the old stock-market scam whereby someone calls you on the phone and predicts which way a stock is going next week, all for free. The next week, the same person calls you up on the phone and says, "Hey, we got one week correct, and here's how the stock is going the next week." After four weeks of correct advice, the person says, "Hey, we've gotten four weeks correct. That ends our series of free advice. The next four weeks of stock advice will cost $1000, but imagine how much money you'll make."

The trick is that the boiler-room operation called (some multiple of) 16 people the first week, splitting the prediction, (some multiple of) 8 people the second week (just those with the correct prediction), again splitting the prediction, etc., so that one-sixteenth of the potential marks were always going to hear four weeks of correct predictions before the pitch.

The point here about a terror attack a few days before a close election is that one could claim that the results are a victory for terrorists, no matter what the results are. And I'm about 90% sure that's how the attack organizers intended it.