n This is a response to Doug Clinton and Trevor Guthrie’s letter to the editor on March 23 (Madrid events clearly influence views,” pg. 11). They seem to assert that the Popular Party’s 4.5-point lead in the polls before the Madrid bombing somehow should have made their victory inevitable.

What they fail to consider is Spanish popular opinion concerning the war in Iraq, which some 90 percent of the Spanish people opposed. The March 11 attack merely strengthened that opinion; the Spanish saw the bombing as the consequence of José Mariá Aznar’s support for the Iraq War. They voted out the party that did things they didn’t like; that’s not terrorist intimidation, it’s democracy. The Spanish, who had been fighting terrorists for decades before our “war on terrorism,” are not so naíve as to confuse the situation in Iraq with actually fighting terrorists.

Furthermore, Clinton and Guthrie concede that nobody likes war, but maintain that it “seems to be the best way to fight terrorism.” I would argue that war is but one option among many, almost never flat out “the best” option, and should always be a last resort. The war in Afghanistan was conducted with broad international support in response to the murder of Americans on our soil. It was wrapped up within a few months and authority was handed over to international peacekeeping forces and the new democratic Afghani government.

The war in Iraq, however, was conducted with few major allies, on pretenses which have yet to be justified and without provocation by Saddam Hussein. It has aroused the ire of moderate Muslims and become the impetus to create a new generation of anti-American terrorists. Can anyone really say that this reckless venture has made the world safer from terrorism, when extremist clerics rail against it to gain support and bombs explode daily all around Iraq?

In Clinton and Guthrie’s words, “America wants peace,” but that has not prevented the Bush administration from foisting the opposite agenda upon a timid and stunned electorate. If we truly want to stop terrorism, we must address its root causes; war may have its place, but terrorism – an idea – cannot be killed with a missile.

Theodore Graham

UNI ’04