I’m with ruadh and others on this one. The electorate re-acted to the Government’s self-serving reaction to the attacks at least as much as to the bombings themselves. Aznar may well have won had he stayed out of the blame game until things became more clear. He was well aware that his Government was vulnerable because of its decision to support the war in Iraq against the wishes of the vast majority of the Spanish people. Once it became clear that he was trying to keep a lid on possible AQ involvement until after the election, the people spoke out against the Government’s perceived arrogance. In the minds of many Spaniards, the Government first ignored their wishes in going to war and then cheapened the lives of the victims of the bombings by playing politics in the aftermath. To portray this result as Spanish popular capitulation to terror is both simplistic and anti-democratic.
***Dogface ** * - maybe we need a mod to united these two Spanish threads but as you are spouting the same anti-appeasment guff here too, I will repost (without typos this time hopefully!
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I think you are totally wrong. You simply cannot compare Al-Qaida with any nation state which can be defeated conventionally. The US is losing this War on Terror because it is losing the War politically - which is where it will be won and lost.
You can kill as many terrorists, and unseat as many hostile states as you wish (that may or may not have some link with terrorism) and you will be not one inch nearer victory. Look at Israel for heavens sake!
Until you truely understand yourself and your enemy and you identify, understand and engage with the real issues that are driving them to do what they do, well you are wasting your time. And making the world a far more dangerous place meanwhile. As the Spanish have just found out…
To react as you wish, redoubling your efforts in the wrong direction, is to actually help create a geopolitical environment that is exactly what AQ wish for.
***jimm * ** has got it exactly right. If you react how you are then you are wide open to be politically manipulated. As a Brit when the Northern Ireland “peace process” first looked like it might actually work, I was against it. The reason? That it would involve letting convicted murderers (c.f. freedom fighters/prisoners of war) out of jail - murderers of people I knew and, coming from a British family with a tradition of military service, people who tried to blow up my brother. It took a long road to realise that peace need not require appeasement, only reconciliation. Classic conflict resolution theory supports this.
Look at the Malayan Emergency at one way, by addressing the hearts and minds of the population, that a terrorist threat was ultimately defeated. And learn…
Xtisme,
The bombing was 3 days before the election. Timing is too good. Its no “random” bombing. It might not be Al Qaeda itself… it might be ETA splinter group at the farthest… but its no random bombing “attacked into Spain because they could”.
About other comments:
People are talking about Spain bending over to AQ… that AQ is using terrorism to influence elections. Now what do you consider Bush showing 9/11 images in his campaign ? I call it using terrorism to influence an election too ! Spaniards chose to stay away from Bush.
Now back to my OP. What are the future implications ? Bush is losing an ally as is Blair. How will the GOP label the spanish election ?
That is one thing to bear in mind, specially WRT American-media readings of the election. The American political scene is unfamiliar with the nuances of proportional-representation parliamentary systems. What was expected going into early March was that the PP would stay on as leader of government, not that it would have a large victory. The “surprise” in Spain was not so much that the PSOE won, but the size of the turnaround.
How many people have those advertisements DIRECTLY killed? Please give a count.
With strong evidence that terrorism in Europe causes Europeans to bend over and appease, Al Qaeda will increase attacks on European targets.
Okay, I’ll grant that.
And for this I’d want a cite. The first sentence in yours is “Spain’s ruling centre-right Popular Party will defeat the Socialists in March 14 general elections.” Reuters was arguing that it’d be close, but even they conceded that Aznar’s party was going to be reelected.
I’ve got a question for those who love to paint the USA as being so very vile and simultaneously say that appeasing Al Qaeda will bring about peace:
If giving in to Al Qaeda’s demands will bring about peace and not giving in to Al Qaeda will only make things worse, why would not the same be true about the USA? After all, since the USA is the cause of all evil, worldwide, and all violence, worldwide, is ultimately the fault of the USA, and giving in to one violent group will make them all peaceful, why won’t giving in to the other one make everything all peaceful?
Cite? I haven’t seen any strong evidence that terrorism in Europe causes Europeans to bend over and appease. I think the pro-war zealots are just saying that because they don’t like the fact that an increased voter turnout resulted in the rejection of a policy which they favor.
The conservative meme: “vote for us or the terrorists win” appears to be getting a little tattered.
Could you keep your strawmen in order please? They’re making a mess all over the floor and causing a fire hazard.
In what sense is voting socialist equivalent to ‘appeasing al-qaeda’ (or ETA or anybody else) ?
The explanation I’ve heard for the election turnaround is that Aznar is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as trying to make political capital out of a tragic event, rather than effectively or realistically address what had happened. He tried to piggyback the issue of terrorism for partisan gain, much as Bush has been doing. This made his party look bad - manipulative, and disrespectful of the dead.
I’m also mystified as to why withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq would be seen as being soft on terrorists. What’s the connection ?
AFAIK we know nothing about the identity or intentions of the bombers so far (the whole telephone connection may be just phone thieves). The only thing we know for sure is that the Spanish electorate were displeased with the PP.
Does anyone have any info indicating that the PSOE have become soft on terrorism ?
I’m very disappointed by the Spanish election, especially since the conservatives apparently have done a pretty decent job by the Spanish economy; which is very healthy (and who in their right mind think socialists can continue a sound financial policy). However I think much of the turnaround is due to the perceived government ETA spin of the train bombings. The conservatives dropped the ball. Of course I’m sure the terrorist will see it as a victory of sorts.
Withdrawing from the Iraq coalition sounds kinda stupid. First they paid all price for participating, now when it’s time to reap some of the rewards, they walk away. Also they’re likely to jeopardise their newly created status as one of the more important countries of Europe (as with the Bush/Blair/Aznar summit), and as a leader of the alternative EU (Spain, England, Italy) coalition.
As for Denmark. The war for Denmark was never really about fighting terrorism, but for standing with allies and making up for earlier, what is now nearly unanimously agreed upon, disgraceful policies of the seventies and eighties.
As for Britain being an island (well it ain’t no more, they’ve got the tunnel, remember). It should now be absolutely clear for everybody, that there is no island, no safe haven, when it comes to these despicable terrorists. We should, as have been the western strategy for centuries, take the war to the terrorists instead of just reacting or trying to defend.
- Rune
If you consider the consequences of Bush's unilateralist policies ? All Iraqi casualties. Without the "War on Terrorism" Bush is nothing. Plus all americans that died in the occupation... a UN invasion would certainly have meant less casualties.
How many people have been killed SPECIFICALLY by the ADVERTISEMENTS run on US TV this last month?
Answer the question I asked.
The recent Spanish election.
None yet… if Bush wins due to them… Thousands. Last month none. You were talking about using terrorism for electoral purposes.
How much has the killing in Iraq help stop Terrorism ? Nothing… just made it worse.
You’re going to have to expand on that a bit. In what way does rejecting bad policy constitute appeasement?
While we’re at it, what would you do if Osama asked you not to jump over a cliff?
On the one hand, if you didn’t jump, you’d be appeasing terrorists. On the other, those rocks at the bottom look awfully hard. Perhaps your with us or against us view of things could benefit from a little broadening?
Come on Dogface, look to yourself and answer the question.
If you are going to try and bully **Rashak Mani ** into admitting an advert itself did not kill anybody ( :rolleyes: strawman) then you at least owe it to Squint to do the same.
All you have done is repeat your previous - a habit of yours I have noticed in so-called debating.
Causes means causation. The proposal is that the terrorism happened and the vote went a certain way - a link but not necessarily causation. Others have suggested the terror attack caused a high turnout (politicising the electorate - a response health in a democracy), that a high turnout favours the left-wing (see my previous posting) and/or that the voters reacted mainly against their incumbent government trying to mislead them that ETA were a shoe-in as the perps (and hinding AQ links until after the weekend) so to avoiding having to defend their foreign policy on the eve of the election.
Where is your evidence - does not have to be a cite - to support you theory that the terrorist act inself directly intimidated the voters causing them, through fear of the consequences, to elect a government that would appease the terrorists?
As others have asked, what indeed is the direct link between a countries stance on Iraq and on terrorism? Apart that is that they might be critical of the first for increasing the risk of the second?
At the risk of repeating what some more eloquent than I have already opined, the problems that I see with the Spanish elections are these:
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A political party allied with the United States is ahead in the polls four days before the election. The next day, a terrorist attack takes place. The result? A shift in the polls and a party less favorable to the United States takes power. The message? Properly timed attacks can turn an election. Now we can all hide behind our ideological shields and poke at each other all day long…but the facts above will not change. Al Queda has just been shown that an election can be altered with violence. If it happens again, I don’t know which will be worse coming from those on this thread who are blinded to this logic…thunderous silence or more tapdancing.
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There are two sides to the War on Terror. You either support the efforts of Al Queda and others or you oppose them. If you oppose them, you have to face the fact that the United States is the leader of this effort. It’s kind of like the two party political system in the United States. The party you favor may not always do things the way you want them done, but overall they are a better choice for you than the other guys. If the european electorate is more comfortable with butter rather than guns, that’s fine. We in the United States will continue to do the heavy military lifting. But do us a favor and don’t do anything to encourage terrorism (see number 1).
At the risk of speaking out of turn as the question wasn’t directed to me…
Without traveling to Spain and interviewing individual voters, I would point to the polls that favored the Aznar government before the bombing and the Socialist victory after it. Apparently thousands of Spaniards changed thier minds. Did some of them do so in the thinking that if they rejected the government that allied itself with the USA that the terrorists would strike Madison instead of Madrid? I believe many of them did just that.
No, there are more than two ways. For instance if we had followed the UN resolutions as most Europeans (including most Brits and most Spaniards and most Poles etc. - despite what their governments said) wanted, then there would be:
No Al Qaida in Iraq today
No Bombing of Madrid last week
No general threat to European nations in the next few months
Instead we have increased terrorist activity (as the security services of both the US and UK predicted would happen) just because Iraq was invaded.
So, there is a third way- Kerry gets elected, makes America’s peace with the rest of the Western World, and starts to oppose terror by effective means rather than having an illogical ‘war’ on terror.
Oh, and you can have some of the freedoms back that have been cynically removed ostensibly for anti-terror purposes, but really for authoritarian political reasons.
There are never just two ways- there are always alternatives.