Great piece about Madrid

“But what horrifies me, is that we now live in an age where hyperterrorism is the norm. Where suicide bombings have become commonplace. Where children are killed in the wombs of their mothers. Where a teenager strapping explosives to their body and murdering a bus full of school children is the standard fodder of the Six O’Clock news. Where blood runs in the streets of cities, thousands of miles away from a war which nobody wanted, and for which, it now appears, we all run the risk of being punished.

It’s time to say it: The War on Terror is a joke. It’s bullshit. And whatsmore, by anyones’ definition, it is an abject faliure. It matters nothing to have Saddam Hussein in a cage, if Madrid can see 200 people killed in a morning. It matters nothing that Taliban fighters stand for TV pictures from American jails, when people in Valencia, my city, look scared when using the Metro. It doesn’t count for shit, so long as people are dying.

Europe is fracturing. The Middle East is a seething bed of hate and rage. America is riddled with fear. Russia is teetering on Dictatorship. Pakistan and India are staring at each other across a border. With Nuclear Fucking Weapons. France is declaring war on religion in the classroom. Berlusconi, Aznar, Schroeder, Chirac, Ahern, Blair, Bush. We are sliding to the right and dragging the rest of the planet with us off the edge.”