« I'm in Love | Main | The Guilty Parties? »

March 11, 2004

A Victim of Terror

By now, everyone with access to any reliable communications medium knows about this:

A series of co-ordinated bomb attacks on Madrid's commuter train system killed at least 186 people and wounded over 1,000 at the height of the city's rush hour, Spanish authorities tell CNN.

I happen to have a good friend in Spain. Correction, I had a good friend in Spain.

No, it's not what you think. He wasn't a victim of this attack. He was a victim of something else entirely - the mindset of the left-wing Euroweenie.

We had been friends since the 11th grade, when he was studying in the States as an exchange student. In the years since, I had traveled to Spain to visit; he had done the same, but in reverse. Despite the distance, we kept up a lively correspondence and I counted him among that group of people who I suspected I would know until my final days.

September 11 changed all that. After seeing the twin towers crumble into dust, debris, and human remains, I became a staunch supporter of unilateral action against any and all violent threats to this country and to Western civilization. Afghanistan had it coming. If Iraq leads the way in reshaping the Middle East, I won't be upset.

Little did I know that the war on terror would claim our friendship as a victim. Not by my choice, of course. I can accept (yet disagree with) the pacifist and isolationist who, for their own reasons, oppose our actions - my friend was not the sum total of his view of this war. In his eyes, I was. I was told we were no longer friends. I was told that my views were unacceptable, immoral, and that I should count him among the dead of our war on terror.

Now, I hope he's not among the dead of today's terror. And that maybe, just maybe, he'll now have a better understanding of even a fraction of what I have felt. Given how the wacky way-left within our own borders has forgotten that clear, sunny day in the fall of 2001, I have my doubts.

But I do have hope.