Killing terrorists MAKES terrorists. You greatly underestimate the power of martyrhood.
I’m not assuming that you were referring to all dissenters but there are people arguing that the attacks influenced elections AND have compassion for the Spanish. I can’t help but think that a lot of the arguments raised in this thread are really reactions to the OP’s unnecessarily harsh condemnations of the Spanish rather than the content of the argument.
I’ll wager the election in Spain has made more than its share of terrorists.
However, whether killed or jailed, I would wager that given the globular effort to round these people up, there are far fewer terrorists on the loose today than there were two years ago, and they are having a much harder time acheiving their goals.
Well, now, you specifically asked for a “workable alternative”. The thing is, you don’t have anything at all for there to be a workable alternative to.
Au contraire (thanks, Coldfire)! I believe that quite a few terrorists, would-be terrorists and their supporters are now either toast or rotting in jails all over the world, and with more deservedly to come.
I posted too soon. A “globular effort” is required. That’s very good. What kind of globs are required?
And now wait! There are terrorists in jail! You must be one of these nancy boys who believes in due process!
Fucking weasling idiot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah…whatever. I’m powerless in the face of such brilliant, slicing invective.
Indeed, it is certainly the uncompassionate tactless heartless fuckwads to whom I refer. I note your own position and, while I disagree with you, respect the respectful manner in which you’ve expressed it.
I promise you, this OP has made me angrier than anything else I’ve ever read on any messageboard. How dare he attack people for making their democratic position known?? How dare that fucker insult a people who have just suffered such a tragedy??? Can you imagine the result if someone insulted the US similarly, three days after 9/11???
I don’t deny that the bombs probably influenced the election result. Try and think of it from a Spanish voter’s POV. “Gee, I’m really pissed off with Aznar defying the entire country and getting us into a war we want no part of, but I’m not sure about the alternative. … Oh my God - see what it’s caused?!? Fuck him then.” It was Aznar’s job to keep the population as safe from terrorism as possible. He failed. End of his career.
If you’d refer to my parody of the OP, you’ll see that I’m saying everything, including the economy, and the US’s voting patterns, is influenced by terrorism. Since 9/11, every time the terrorist funders want to make money and hurt the global economy, they can sell short and then let off a bomb! And the terrorist motherfuckers are going to think they’ve won whatever happens.
Several of my friends believe that the only appropriate response for terrorism is to do nothing. My boyfriend in particular, even back on 9/11, believed that we should respond by withdrawing from the Mideast instead of hunting down Bin Laden. 3,000 people had been killed just not minutes ago and he was already emphasizing that we should not go to war or hunt anybody, but rather pull out of the Mideast and do nothing.
Initially, on Sunday night, I was angry at what I perceived as a knee-jerk towards this “roll over and die” philosophy when Spain voted Socialists back in power in response to a horrific act of terrorism. I didn’t care one whit that socialists got back in power, all I did was perceive that Spain unilaterally decided to follow the “roll over and die” philosophy of my left-wing friends & boyfriend.
From the wording of the OP it sounds like s/he has thought & reacted the same way as I did, probably also based on experience with other left-wingers in America. So his reaction is very understandable and had nothing to do with the completely idiotic “vote Kerry, Bin Laden wants it” line Bush is pushing (look at my sig, do you think I support Bush?)
Are you saying that the “roll over and die” philosophy, or whatever else you call it, is NOT what Spain voted for? But rather had more to do with pre-existing dissatisfication with the government? That the majority of Spainards do not believe that they should not take any actions towards the attackers?
Ommmm… Ommmmm…
Stay calm, stay calm
See Dean vs. Kerry polls.
Polls can be misleading.
I tend to agree that this is a appeasment. While we had legitimate reasons for pulling our troops out of SA (like having eliminated the threat from Saddam) one could argue that the war in Iraq was motivated in part by the desire to get the troops out of SA. Surely AQ will take chalk it up as a win.
Yes - but the point is that removing the troops addressed one of the grievances that keep the pot of potential terrorists cooking. If you suffer from malaria because of mosquitoes developing in a pond fed by a cracked sewer you don’t just kill the mossies, you also fix the problem that allowed them to breed in the first place. You are not appeasing the mosquitoes by doing the pipe fixing thing.
Unless you address the causes of terrorism there will always be more terrorists.
First of all, great post Sailor. Thanks for a proper Spanish perspective.
Now, on to this. I believe this is what is causing conservative panty-waddage. This terrifies them–as well it should. It means there might be a quiet, underground swell of previously non-participatory voters in America who are gunning for this next election. The OP’s whole argument (and those who support it) is a pre-emptive strike against those voters, and an attempt to intimidate them. “See, this is what you’ll have to deal with. You’ll be a coward if you help vote Bush out, and every red-blooded American dildo-head will harangue you for it.”
This whole fucking thing has been a sham. Even American press kept on with ETA bullshit and I, here in Kentucky, USA, for cryin’ out loud, continued to wonder why there was no discussion of evidence even I had heard of through the foreign press that linked the bombing to an AQ-related Muslim extremist group.
Down with dildo-heads. Fuckers.
The fact that the government was obviously and blatantly withholding information, if not plain lying, was IMHO crucial to how thgings developed. While the government-controlled media was insisting it was ETA, SER and CNN were broadcasting new evidence which pointed to Al Qaeda. The government, rather than ackowledge what was happening decided to cover it up and lie. The minister of foreign affairs gave instructions to ambassadors to assert categorically that it was ETA and this in spite of all evidence to the contrary. In the UNSC Spain presented a resolution blaming ETA and other countries balked and proposed condemning terrorism. The government of the USA became a part to this lie when it supported the resolution when they had evidence pointing to AQ, and, in fact, it was in the interests of the USA that it was AQ. Spain asked the US government for support in passing this lie in order to get reelected and the US goverment complied knowing they were lying. Spain and the USA gave their assurances that they knew it was ETA and on that word the resolution was passed. Today (16), Spain has presented a letter of apology to the UN for this although it blames faulty information rather than the evident truth that it was a deliberate lie.
Saturday afternoon and evening the mood in Spain was one of rage with the government. People were watching SER and CNN saying there was evidence pointing to Al Qaeda and the government media was still pointing at ETA in spite of all the evidence. People in Madrid began gathering in front of the HQ of the PP demanding information. Mobile phones started buzzing as the message was passed on with SMS. “Pasalo” (pass it on) became the byword and the message was passed aorund and soon there were thousands gathering at the party HQ. That is how I found out. I got an SMS on my mobile saying to tune to CNN or SER and that people were concentrating at the HQ of the PP. “Pasalo”.
The PP were getting alarmed as they saw they could not control the information or keep spinning it. Their candidate Rajoy made a huge mistake: he went on TV and said those concentrating in front of their HQ were anti-democratically trying to influence the elections. You could feel the insecurity and fear in his voice. A few hours or days earlier he was counting on victory and now he felt it was slipping away. Well, if there was anybody left who did not know about what was happening, now they knew. And the government sounded insecure which is the last thing you need in a time of crisis. People kept converging there and so did riot police. There was some apprehension that the government might use the police but the whole thing was peaceful and the government did not make the mistake of trying to use the police to dissolve the demonstration. At about 11 PM the people decided to march to the Puerta del Sol where the local government is located. At 1 am when I left the demonstration was still going strong. Some photos I took.
The mood here is still very somber. It is heartwrenching to see people still looking for their missing loved ones or telling other sad stories. A young south American woman looking for a stranger who saved her life and kept her company until the ambulance arrived and took her away. the man had stayed with her and covered her with his coat even though more bombs were going off. All she knows is that he mentioned he had a sister with the same name as her. There were countless heroes that day and some lost their lives tryig to help others. The Spanish people are no more cowardly than the American people or any other people.
Some of the victims were Moroccans as were some of the terrorists who planted the bombs. I just saw a Morroccan woman crying. She lost her 13 year old daughter in the blasts. It seems there were Morroccan victims from the same towns as the Morrocans who planted the bombs.
There have been reports of isolated incidents of harassment of Muslims but nothing serious. There are almost one million Morroccans in Spain and many immigrants from other countries. A friend of mine employs a young Moroccan woman as housemaid and yesterday morning she arrived to work in tears because someone had said to her in the street “I hope you are happy with what your people have done”. There are ignorant, bigoted, assholes everywhere but luckily it seems like a minor problem here. No authority or politician or comentator has proposed or supported any extreme measures against foreigners. On the contrary, they are saying now is the time to be careful and not let irrational emotions get hold of the country. I just saw a member of a discussion panel on TV say something to that effect and another one said there was no danger in Spain of anything like Guantanamo or any of the other measures the USA has taken. In fact, the suspects of the bombing have already today been presented by the police to a judge. It takes guts and self control to not let irrational emotions and feelings for revenge control you. It takes guts to say the law should be respected and we should make sure nobody is treated or punished unfairly. That is what takes guts in a situation like this. Crying out for killing and vengeance is the easy thing to do and I do believe the Spanish people have good reason to be proud.
Like I said, it could be argued that the removal of troops from SA was a result of the removal of the threat of Saddam rather than surrendering to the will of AQ,
but to not admit that there is a potential subtext of submission would be hypocritical of me given my other posts. Whether or not it is appeasement, AQ will certainly interpret it as such.
sailor I’d like to thank you for your contribution to this tread. Your last post in particular was very informative.
Thanks
I apologize for my previous post, which was pretty ignorant. I should never post at 1 am like that.
Glad to see the Spanish government is emulating ours in emphasizing that Spanish Moroccans should not be held responsible for the attacks by their criminal elements. NYC made sure that Muslim clerics were at all the prayer services after 9/11 and there weren’t any physical incidents AFAIK, although there were taunts from idiots for a while.
Although I don’t see what Gautanamo has to do with it–there’s no Americans there.
sailor, you and I have cracked our skulls on each other’s heads many, many times, and though we will probably still strongly disagree on various issues, I just want to say your last two posts in this thread have moved me.
¡Bravo, y gracias!
I’m not sure it matters why the Spaniards voted out Aznar.
There was a terrorist attack days before an election.
AQ is largely believed responsible.
The election results in a gov’t that is more “favorable” to AQ’s ends…1500 less troops to deal with in Iraq, you see.
I’m afraid AQ will view this as a victory and commit more terrorist attacks shortly before elections. I think in their eyes, they successfully toppled a gov’t that was a problem for them.
That is precisely the point. The Spanish people and government believe Human Rights, due process, etc are for all humans and that foreigners are also humans and are entitled to them just as much as any Spanish citizen. The fact that the suspects are aliens does not mean they are not entitled to the same due process and they have been taken before the judge according to the same laws which apply to any Spaniard. Nobody here has said “they’re Moroccans, to hell with due process”. Very much the contrary. Guantanamo cannot happen in Spain and i am glad for that. It is a disgrace that it is happening in America
Eight years ago the socialists lost the elections over the scandal that they had broken the law in the fight against ETA. The Spanish people do not want a dirty war for the sake of expediency. They believe you cannot break the law to uphold the law. And this is a country which has been dealing with ETA for decades. Where many people live in fear for their lives, under threats, under police protection and not being able to live normal lives. News reporters, university professors, local politicians. . . many have been killed by terrorists and yet no one is advocating any abridgement of due process for the sake of expediency. If the government did that it would paly directly into the hands of the terrorists.
Iraq is a legitimate grievance of Muslims and the way to deal with it is to recognize it as such, not to escalate it. Dealing with legitimate grievances is not appeasement nor caving in, it is simply the right thing to do. Refusing to recognize them and deal with them is playing iinto their hands and creating discontent and ultimately more terrorists. The Spanish feel, like I feel, that addressing legitimate grievances is much more effective at diminishing the level of violence than just spiraling the violence out of control. American policy leads to greater tension, greater violence and more terrorism. Look at the Palestinian situation and that is where we are headed. It has not worked there and it will not work in Iraq. Complex problems do not have simple solutions. President Bush painted a rosy picture of Iraq becomin Japan but instead we have an anti-American war, a quasi civil war and the whole region has been destabilized and terrorism has increased. Anyone who believes they have a simple solution for such a complex problem is a fool. Even if he is the President of the USA.