On March 11th, 2004, the Madrid train bombings left 191 people dead and 2,050 wounded exactly two and a half years after September 11th and just three days before Spain’s Sunday elections were to take place. The immediate reaction in the Spanish media was to blame the Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or ETA, for the attack. Right-wing government officials, eager to hold on to their control, were all too ready to monopolize on such suspicions. To divert negative press away from their pro-Bush policies, government officials openly placed the responsibility for the death and destruction on leftist elements.

However, most people saw past the charade, as incoming evidence pointed to the fact that the bombings were actually carried out by Islamic militants in response to the Spanish government’s support for the invasion of Iraq. It was now clear that working class people around the world would continue to be the victims of western imperialism. No longer was the violent resistance against imperialism confined to the mosques and market places of India, Iraq, Bali, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, and Egypt, but so too were the citizens of London, Israel, America, and Spain experiencing the same violence in bus terminals, airports, and general hubs of transportation.

Hours before the Sunday election, a video was discovered in which a man, identifying himself as an al-Qaeda spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack. “This is an answer to your cooperation with the Bush criminals and their allies,” the man said. “This is an answer to crimes which you committed in the world, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there will be more, so help us God.”

During this week in capitalism, on March 14th, 2004, the people of Spain voted against their country’s support for the war, occupation of Iraq, and the governing right-wing People’s Party. In an upset win, the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) won a plurality of seats in the Congress of Deputies to become the largest party of government, while the conservative People’s Party lost 39 seats, ending eight years of right-wing rule.

As much as 90 percent of Spain was against the Iraq War and occupation. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, head of the PSOE, promised during the election that he would withdraw Spanish troops as part of his consistent opposition to the war. Shortly after taking office, Zapatero kept his word.

Terrorists have shown that there is no safe haven for the citizens of nations who exploit the poorer majority of the world. For some countries, such as America, the presence of terrorism was seized and manipulated by right-wing pro-capitalist elements, successfully giving credibility to their agenda. However, the pointlessness of this perpetual “tooth for a tooth” cycle was best understood by leftists in Spain who offered an alternative to voters. Voters realized that the bloodshed would not end unless the terrorists in their own government were out of power.

The PSOE was founded to represent the interests of the working class, and was inspired by the philosophy of Karl Marx. Though sympathetic to the plights of those exploited by imperialism, Marxism stresses at its most fundamental level that the fight against capitalism must be directed towards the upper percentile, and not the masses that share the common worldwide struggle. Though perhaps not as socialist as they once were when founded in 1879, the PSOE has offered a real solution to the growing problem of terrorism which both parties of the world’s only superpower have yet to comprehend.

source 1
source 2
source 3
source 4