Unintended consequences

In the rhetoric running up to the recent wars in Afghanistan, some warned that the result would be a strengthening of fundamentalist Islam. But what happens when you bomb a liberal democracy?

From The Guardian:
The incoming prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, set Spain on a radical course of social change yesterday by promising to legalise gay marriage and amend the constitution to give women the equal right of succession to the throne.

Thanks to the regime change in Spain, accelerated by the train bombings attributed to al Qaida, that liberal democracy is becoming even more liberal.

Americans might not realize that another partner in the War on Terrorism, the UK, is on its way to legalizing civil unions; the bill got some conservative support even.

It would be ironic if the end result of al Qaida's war upon the West and its values ultimately drove the West further into putting the liberal in liberal democracy. Blowback works both ways.