Consequences of the terrorist attacks, the elections, and opinions out there
25/12/2004 19:29 | Categories: General | 3 Comments
The blasts in Madrid last week deeply saddened the world and the aftermath of the events and the outcome of the elections last weekend has been one of the most favourite topics in the web during the last few days. All of sudden, everybody is talking about it and everybody is now pretending like the know what they're talking about or like they knew a lot about Spanish history, politics and the Spanish people. Amongst the clueless, the funniest ones to read are the Americans, specially if you look on the right side: "TERRORISTS HAVE SUCCEEDED IN TOPPLING THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT.", says Instapundit. How about a round-up with the most moronic comments you can find in English-speaking blogs out there: "SPANISH ELECTION POSTCRIPT"? Read it through, not a single one from a Spanish blog and besides, they're pathetic. How easy it is to write for the sake of keeping your blog busy. What elase... oh yes, "Spain Loses Her Nerve" and "Regime Change by Al-Qaeda" (for this last one, I'll drop a hint: Spain does not have a regime since, uhh, 1975? We've been a parliamentary democracy since then, pal!)Other comments seems to come from yank expats who have quite a righteish view of the issue, and who don't hesitate a second to call the whole Spanish population "cowards" and claim that this is a clear victory for the terrorist. Oh boy, how little do they know! None of these yanks knows anything about the authoritarian and patronizing style of Aznar's politics during the last four years when he "enjoyed" an absolute majority in the parliament. How about the anti-nationalist campaign driven from Madrid and targetted mainly at Catalonia and the Basque Land? How about ignoring your population when 90% is agains the war. Uncle Sam believes Spain supported them in the crusade against the infidels in Iraq but they're all wrong... we didn't support you, Aznar himself and alone did! And how about the blatant manipulation of the media after the Madrid blasts? Do these American know that Mr. Aznar himself called the directors of the most important Spanish newspapers briefly after the attack, to tell them that they should publish that, doubtlessly, ETA was behind them. Oh, but he also called the day after to reassure them (just in case they didn't get the message the first day)! And how about the Spanish minister of foreign affairs instructing our diplomats abroad that they should only talk about ETA?
My clueless American friends, the way in which the government dealt with the attacks was the last straw. People couldn't take it anymore and by means of the elections we made our opinion to be heard, the same opinion that was ignored when we said NO to the war. Cowardice? I doubt it. I don't think the new government has or will surrender before the terrorists. I don't think you can call us cowards after fighting for over 30 years against ETA.
Hopefully, I am not the only one who thinks this way, for I was starting to believe that the world had gone crazy... He has some good points, and so does he, and even some other Spaniards have raised their voice about this. Another good one by argumenting one of the reasons: lies and manipulations.
I'm no leftist or righteist and I am not saying that new socialist government will be any better than what we had so far. Might be, let's see how things fare, but it really pissed me off to see all those comments calling us cowards and that we surrendered before terrorism, by people who write things from 2000km away and who pretend they have a point.
Comments
3 Comments
Definitions of regime:
1.b A government in power, administration.
What you don't understand is that, from the point of view of the terrorists, Spain proved that a western democratic state can have its government changed as a result of mass terrorism. It matters not, to Al Qaeda or the Arab world what the internal politics are. It matters not that you personally were going to vote against the existing government anyway. And it matters not how Aznar handled the results of the attack - it was timed to minimize the ability of the government to make a reasoned and rational response.
If you had said NO to the war in an election the day before the attack, there would have been only disappointment from the US. We would have lost your help in Iraq, but that would have been the main negative repercussion, and although we appreciate the very good job that Spanish military has done, we can go on with out them. Presumably you would have continued to help in the anti-proliferation initiative.
But when many voters switch their vote as a result of the terrorist attacks, what counts is that they are vindicating the terrorist attacks. The very fact that one of the first statements of the winner was that Spain would pull our of Iraq sends a strong message to terrorists: we have forced Spain to do what we wanted. It was well known, before the attack, that Al Qaeda's current strategy was to use terror to split off our allies who helped in Iraq.
Never mind that most of you wanted out of Iraq anyway. What counts is action after attack. What was displayed was either idiocy or cowardice (take your pick) by those who switched sides. Idiocy if they didn't know that by doing so they were vindicating terrorist attacks. Cowardice if they did know.
If your new leader understood terrorism and truly wanted to fight it, his first act would have been to announce that his troops will stay in Iraq, simply to prove to Al Qaeda that Spain's policies couldn't be changed by the murder of Spain's citizens. This would have required a broad understanding of terrorism, and polical courage that probably would have been repaid later. But he didn't do that, so he vindicated mass murder.
We do have a point. Our citizens will die as a result of your capitulation. Al Qaeda doesn't care why you disliked Aznar. They care only that they were able, by mass killing, to force many people to switch their votes. It will vindicate their belief that western Europeans are cowards (even though many in Spain did not capitulate), and encourage their tactics. Even if you assert that the attack was not the reason that Aznar was toppled, they won't believe it. Just as American internal politics affect the safety of the world, so do yours.
Your leader says he will continue to fight terrorism? How? By negotiating with them? By waiting for the pathetic and bribed UN to ask to you to attack some country after the next huge attack? By being France's poodle?
You are going to try and find the people who caused the attack, but the leaders will hide in other countries. Will you have the courage to go get them there? I doubt it, unless you get the undemocratic UN Security Council to bless it. You are going to increase security measures in you country (if there is anything more you can do after all the years of ETA terrorism). It won't make any difference. All of this will be perceived by the cultures of the Middle East as cowardice, because to not avenge such an attack is to them unimaginable except by cowards. And that perception will strengthen the terrorists and encourage more such attacks.
Finally, in this age of instant world-wide communications, we can indeed have opinions about your votes. We knew every argument that you just made, for example. But what counts the most is Al Qaeda and the Muslim world's perception of this act, and how it influences their future actions. And they view it as a major victory for Al Qaeda, a triumph of Islam over western decadence, and a start in the campaign to recover Andalusia for Islam.
It will make it easier for them to recruit, in Europe, in North America and in the MIddle East. It will cause the technique to be used again, in Britain, in Poland, in the United States before our election, and perhaps France and Germany.
I've said many times before and I will repeat as many times as it is needed: terrorists didn't topple the former government. The government screw up themselves, because they didn't handle the situation created after the 11-M blasts correctly. Can you believe a president calling the media to tell them what to write? Can you believe the head of the foreign affairs ministery calling the ambassadors and diplomats abroad telling them what to say? Can you believe the anti-terrorist group of the police standing against the government? (heck, even the head of the group wanted to resign!) And last but not least, your very own deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, has already hinted that Mr. Aznar chose the wrong strategy by keeping people misinformed and that it probably influeced the elections. There's a good article in the Washington Post about this: Spain Campaigned to Pin Blame on ETA, it's worth having a look.
You try to make a point based on the fact that many people suddenly changed their political opinion. But that's quite far from the truth... People did not switch sides overnight. The PP got about the same amount of votes they got in the 2000 elections (I think ~500000 less) but this time, many more people who didn't vote last time, voted (about 2 million more) and guess what, they voted PSOE, the socialist party. You can hardly call these people "overnight switches" or to put it in your own words, "idiots". These are the kind of people who cannot stand things like what the government did, and if you play with them in the way the government did, you'll regret it and by insulting them you are insulting the uttermost form of government: DEMOCRACY. People are given the power to choose and to decide, so that's what they did.
I also love how you call us "cowards" withouht even blinking. You think 12 million people demonstrating on the streets is a symbol of cowardice? Do you think that withdrawing our troops from Iraq means that we won't fight against terrorism? How about all the people captured so far? You think we're going to release them? I just hope that the consequences of what happened in Spain helps to remove the blindfold that's covering your eyes. It's great that you want to be the policeman of the world but first you should learn to listen to the opinions of other countries, or you thought the whole world approved of the war with Iraq?, and show the same degree of preocupation about some other international issues such as Palestine-Israel (hey, why don't you go invade them both?), North Korea (what, affraid of nukes?), amongst others. And of course your internal politics affect the rest of the world, heck, because you want them to!
Do you live in Spain? Because I think that you don't know the reality of Spain and why spanish people decides to vote PSOE and not PP... And how can you affirm that the terrorist attacks change the gouvernment if the elections have been after the attacks? If they were elections before we could compare, but here, you don't have any thing to compare (stadisticts are only that...).
I don't know you, I don't read your blog (I don't know if you have one), but I can affim that you don't know the reality of Spain...