Madrid, 11 March

If there is a huge shift in the vote I suspect it will be due to the suspicion that the Spanish government may have cynically exploited and attempted to 'spin' a tragic event for political gain, it will not be due to any terrorist pressure.

Tony.

 

but indirectly it could be attributed to terroist action?


It's always a pity when, so soon after a tragic event like this, the focus turns to politics and not the pain of grief for the relatives.

 

You're probably right but even if they hadn't tried to spin the event and Al-Queda had been prime suspects from the off it will have reminded people of the war and that 90% of the population was against Spain supporting it and given rise to a kind of "now look what you've got us into" type of reaction.

Michael.

 

Looks like the people's anger in the government handling of the bombings has translated into votes at the ballot box with the socialists winning.

I guess the terrorists will take this as indication that a carefully timed bombing campaign does indeed pay dividends, especially if the socialists pull the spanish troops out of Iraq.

I wonder what future horrors await us........

 

The new Spanish government has just announced that it will pull all it's military out of Iraq.

Tony

 

I have to say I'm very glad the PSOE (Socialists) won in Spain and I'm glad they'll be pulling their troops out of Iraq too but it's almost certain neither would have happened if it weren't for the bombings last Thursday so it's fair to say that the bombings were an unqualified success for Al-Queda and will no doubt inspire them to try similar things in other countries.

It's a dilemma because on the one hand, you don't want terrorists to "succeed" by having the government change hands when, all other things being equal, it wouldn't do but on the other hand it's not consistent with democracy to tell people that they musn't allow an attack like that to influence their vote or to delay elections because of an attack.

I think it's too easy to blame the PP's mishandling of the attacks (unequivocally blaming ETA) for their loss at the polls. I believe they would have lost regardless of how they had handled it.

To quote from the BBC News site:

Very disturbing indeed

Michael.

 

We may be OK, since there are clearly no socialists in British politics now . Unless of course we are all going to applaud our next Prime Minister....Kennedy

 

My gut feeling is the present political party has been losing a bit of support with the Spanish people before the trains bombing. Maybe it is not only due to the unpopular decision to join in the coalition war on Iraq. I do not follow their politics before closely.

Quote from BBC dated back in 27 Feb 2004.
The Popular Party has been in power since 1996.
Opinion polls published on Friday suggested that it would again take first place, but would have to find a coalition partner to form a government.
A survey in the right-leaning La Razon paper suggested the Popular Party could get 170-71 seats, down from its 2000 election total of 183 and half a dozen seats short of a majority.
The Socialists were expected to seize at least 15 extra seats, up from their current 125.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3493344.stm


Now after the Madrid incident the people of Spain has decided they do wish a change of power that governs them.


Quote from BBC again from 15 March 2004.
Socialists won 42% of the vote, while the centre-right Popular Party won 38%.
The BBC's Chris Morris, in Madrid, says the train bombings did more than shock Spain to the core; they proved to be the decisive factor in the general election that ousted the government.
Mr Zapatero was - until Thursday's bombings - considered an outsider for Spain's top job.
Despite his party's victory, however, there is expected to be much political "horse-trading" because the Socialists did not win an absolute majority.
While Mr Zapatero said his first priority was to tackle terrorism "in all its forms", he is thought likely to do it in a very different way than the outgoing government.
Outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and his wife were booed and jostled as they arrived to cast their votes.
The Spanish Government backed the US-led invasion of Iraq last year despite polls showing 90% opposition to it from the Spanish public.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3511886.stm


Terrorists of this world have been reading the world in distorted views and will always irrespective of the events in Spain. I think the Spanish people have decided for themselves that they would like a change of government. All politicians are elected by the people to be in office and could be remove if they do not listen and represent their views and believes anymore. That is the principal significance of the democratic elected government.

 

A disturbing thought indeed.

The Spanish electorate were apparently about 90% against joining Bush's attack on Iraq, making the invasion even less popular in Spain than in the UK (about 60-65% against). The Spanish socialist party was apparently opposed to the war throughout. The major difference with the UK being that all major political parties here bizarrely sided with Bush rather than their own electorate, so a similar terrorist act couldn't really change any election outcome.

Tony.

 

We had IRA and many others who have sick thought process that causes the death of many people for many years before the al-Qaeda. We will survive.

 

Schoking views

Most Europeans are very anti-America. The UK is different, because of community of language (if you consider American English to be English at all) and descent.

So most European governments that sided with the EUA did it against public opinion. The French and German governments understood that (for different reasons) and that is why they resisted.

That said, I didn't like the cause-effect appearance of Zapatero's (which means Shoemaker, or Schumacher in German) decision to pull out of Iraq.

Well, politicians will be politicians.

With hindsight we can now say that invading Iraq was a wrong decision. But at the time, governments were convinced the Americans had proof.

Also, most European governments cannot really oppose a request from the EUA.
So, in a way, it is unfair that this makes governments fall.

RATHER SCHOKING VIEW OF TERRORISM TO FOLLOW
Regarding terrorism, of course I don't condone it, but one has to see it from the Fundamentalist's point of view: we are all degenerates; we are individualistic, atheist, permissive to the point of promiscuity; we have too much money and spend it in trifles when there are people dying of hunger and only look for the materialistic side of things.

We are, in a way, the incarnation of evil, the epitome of what is despicable.

In that sense, they are not necessarily conducting a war against our armies, but against us.

Also, we have huge armies; they cannot beat us on those grounds; so they engage in another kind of war. Remember, that is exactly what David did when he fought against Goliath: it was supposed to be a stick fight; David actually cheated when he hurled a stone against Goliath: he could not win any other way. That is exactly what the Arab fundamentalists are doing. Of course they are not playing according to our rules - they would loose. So they hurl bombs instead. Can you really blame them?

I know most of you won't agree. But please, consider this as an opinion: I am not pro fundamentalists, I hate violence, and I am not even a strong left wing person. I'm just trying to understand.

 

The thing that has amazed me throughout the time since September 11th is the sense of utter blind paranoia, the question has always been “how do we stop them doing this again?†rather than “why did anyone feel the need to do this?â€Â.

There is little doubt in my mind that the world is currently in this situation as a direct result of aggressive foreign policy in the middle east from the US and its allies. There is also no doubt in my mind that things will only get worse if Bush and Blair are allowed to continue on the path they have chosen.

Tony.

 

Tony

nail/head

not once do they seem to of asked themselves why it happened

 

I couldn't agree more with you Tony.

Michael.

 

I agree with Tony, too, and that was the general sense of my post.

But the fundamentalists have hated westerners a long period before Busch.

I already told you about a conversation I once had with fundamentalists and they were blind with rage against the Europeans - Americans were not discussed. I can still remember the hate in the gaze of one of the fellows. But, this is the main point, this happened 25 years ago.

 

Re: Schoking views

As a Fundamentalist Atheist, I have to turn this around and ask the question when did Fundie Atheists like me ever cause anyone any problems at all? OK, I accept that I am rude to religious people whenever I can be, but apart from that...

Religion is the root problem, and the sooner it is outlawed in all its forms, the better.

 

It's not a big jump from these sentiments (obviously not the Devil's....) to empathising with Hitler's complaints about how Germany was treated after WW1 and perhaps his aggression was somehow 'our' fault and so shouldn't be resisted, and perhaps the Jews are too influential.

It's a slippery slope.

You are then assuming that the Islamic fundamentalists speak for their peoples, and that's a completely unwarranted assumption.

The kinds of states operated by Islamic fundamentalists are morally unacceptable and if saying so makes psychopaths angry, so be it. Freedoms of assembly, expression and religion are fundamental human rights. To imply that they are less important to Arabs is racist, even if it gives the free world a brief respite, and eventually they will have to be dealt with.

Paul

 

couple of points here:

my response to 911 was what on earth is greiving them SO much to do such a thing...

got to dispute with one of your points Rds: atheists...A lot of Amercica is very Christian, Spain is very Catholic, England is supposedly Christian.

sure its not Islam, but it is a belief....

oddly enough, they are using 'Western' tools, computers, mobile phones..to do their 'work', so in that respect, they have what we have, and are not 'poor' bin laden is seriously rich, as are many arabs...they need our cash for their oil. Simple business.

What disturbs me, is that they bomb innocent civilains, we all agree on that, but they bomb the people 90% of whom were anti the war, so they are killing people who oppose the very thing they oppose....bizarre!!!

I am suprised we here have had escaped it till now....

 

Paul, you have made some very good points there.

 

I understand your post. But speaking of Hitler's rise to power -- remember, he was elected -- one certainly has to understand the German people's frustration with the Versailles agreement - which was completely offensive to Germany. I will never dream of defending Hitler or, for that matter, Stalin or Mao. They were monsters, what they have done cannot be condoned.

But one must understand a culture in terms of the ways of thinking of that culture - this is not racism, as you imply. Quite the contrary: I'm stating that our values are not necessarily the best ones. Freedom of expression is good? Yes, we certainly think so. But for the most part of human history that has not been the way. Killing foreigners is bad? Again, we think so. But did you know that in most human cultures the word 'human' designates only the people belonging to that culture? For instance, with Bushmen 'dole' means 'bad' and foreigner.

I'm I defending cultural relativity? No, I'm just stating that culture relativity is a reality.

Westerners, to a certain extent, consider Life to be sacred (in spite of the crusades, slaves, racism and so on) and that is a factor I personally believe stems from Christianity and, later, from its rational reedition, the enlightenment.

Most other cultures consider the life of their members to be sacred. Not the life of foreigners. Xenophoby is the rule, not the politically incorrect way in which westerners think of other cultures.

My conclusion is a very cynical one: I am against the terrorists, be assured. Why? Because I happen to be a target. Are they wrong? Are they right? That does not interest me. That is moralism. I don't believe in morals. I believe in human tendencies to action. The current state of affairs is a (admittedly) ghastly example of human nature.

We may not like it. We cannot deny it.