Uh...I really don't think that's what he said. What a shock that people in this forum would find a way to blame this on Bush...
uhh.. i know. which is why i very decisively chose to say "insinuating" instead of "said". so? shock that one in this forum would find a way to blame what on bush? the madrid bombings? cause if you mean that, then yes...lets debate.
Aznar is at fault for being dumb enough to listen to bush Now a few hundred of his people are dead, and he is out of a job. I guess the spanish electorate are just a bunch of america hating panises. You guys keep saying people should blame the terrorists, sure they should, but ultimately that's a meaningless gesture; it's very difficult to hold a bunch of suicidal fanatics accountable. Our elected officials, charged with protecting us, are the ones that are to be held accountable when they fail in doing so. Aznar put Spain in harm's way, harm happened, and he was held accountable for it.
Does the chain of causation lead back to Bush and his decision to invade Iraq? Sure, absolutely it does. Only an idiot would argue to the contrary, but then again, Aznar made his decision, he's a big boy. He took the blame, and it was deserved.
good points...i disagree with a lot of what you say, but you pretty much put forth the argument pretty clearly. but you make it an argument where it almost sounds like a wifebeating type argument. the woman acted up because she talked back or something so she got beat down. maybe i am reading into what you say too much when you say its hard to hold sucidal fanatics accountable thats what i get from it. it sounds like by saying it the way you did that everyone should just stay out of the way of al-queda so they don't attack.
Well, Spain wasn't in the way of al qaeda before. Aznar put them there. He knowingly made them targets of homicidal suicidal fanatics by goiong to Iraq, against the wishes of his people. Now, the homicidal fanatics are culpable for killing, no question, but Aznar is responsible for drawing their attention and knowingly putting them in their way. That's the way the Spanish saw it. Ironically enough, Spain really made itself a target by going to Iraq, where there was no real al qaeda presence anyway.
From the reports I've read, what tipped the slight plurarity to the socialists was the fact that the populist party and its leader was deceptive about the attack, or appeared to be deceptive by attempting to pin it on ETA when there was conflicting evidence and MO. I think if they had been more forthcoming at the start, they may have won anyways, since they were leading, and the Spanish people didn't seem to care enough about Iraq to put the socialists in the lead to begin with.
It seems al Qaeda has issues with Spain beyond Iraq. Fall 2003 <a HREF="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/08/attack/main572189.shtml">Spanish Court Indicts Osama</a> <i> A Spanish judge indicted Osama bin Laden and 34 others Wednesday on charges of terrorism, including the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. In a nearly 700-page document, investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzon issued international arrest orders for bin Laden and seven others suspected in the Sept. 11 hijackings. Spain served "as a place or base for resting, preparation, indoctrinating, support and financing" of al Qaeda, Garzon said in the ruling. The list of indicted suspects includes Tayssir Alouni, the Al-Jazeera journalist arrested Sept. 8 in Spain, and Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, who was accused of leading an al Qaeda cell in Spain and was arrested in Madrid in November 2001. Six others believed to be in Spain also were indicted, but not all will be jailed, according to the order, which was obtained by The Associated Press. Garzon ratified jailing orders for 11 already in prison in Spain. Garzon also accused the suspects of belonging to a terrorist group and other crimes, including weapons possession, tax fraud and forgery. Other names on the indictment list include Ramzi Binalshibh, another core leader of the Hamburg cell that helped prepare the attacks. He was arrested in Pakistan in September 2002. Along with Germany, Spain is known to have been an important staging ground for the Sept. 11 attacks. Accused ringleader and suicide pilot Mohamed Atta visited Spain in July 2001 and is believed to have held a key planning meeting with other participants in the northeastern Spanish region of Tarragona. About 40 Islamic extremist suspects have been arrested in Spain since the attacks, although many were released for lack of evidence. Garzon has been leading the investigation in Spain into alleged members of al Qaeda and other militant Islamic groups. Garzon had Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet arrested in London but failed in 1999 to take him to court. Britain ultimately freed the aging ex-despot on grounds he was unfit to stand trial. Last month, he had requested that Buenos Aires extradite 40 men indicted in Spain for abuses during Argentina's "dirty war." He also had focused on Spain's Basque separatist conflict, working to break up commando units of the armed group ETA.</i>
So if yall are saying Spain should have expected an attack since it was an ally of the US in the Iraq war, doesn't this mean our intelligence services failed miserably again?
Goodness. I did not think you were that stupid. How can you even ask this question? This question is so dumb it is not even funny.
You've been here since forever, Det. Can't rightly believe you're surprised. That's hardly DD's most outrageously simpleminded political take. And anyway, don't you belong to that rare breed of Trader Poof fans? DD's a piker when it comes to dumb takes compared to Poofie.
I have never seen T_J make stupid, ignorant posts about foreign politics - at least nothing outside the "official party line" regarding the war on terror/Iraq which for me is one thing. Asking a question as ignorant as the one DD did is something completely different. By the way, whoever posted that ETA does not attack civilians, that is completely incorrect. They have killed over 800 people in 30 years, and many of them were civilians.
So are we to believe that the Spanish people's sympathy for Al-Qaeda will now be on the increase because AQ murdered a bunch of innocent Spaniards? Doesn't this tragedy just vindicate the position of the Spanish government towards Al-Qaeda? How can you be neutral about terrorism? You cannot afford just to be afraid and cower and pray that they leave you alone. Okay, let's not confront them and wait for them to behead our children a couple of decades from now for listening to "The Best of Eminem." What is to be gained by doing anything but escalating the hunt for terrorists?
Jackie: That's probably because there are plenty of "ignorant, stupid" posts to make about foreign politics within the party line. And the positions represented by those posts have been opposed by the great majority of the world and the great majority of Spaniards. As such, it's no surprise that Spanish voters responded to the attacks by rejecting the government that disregarded their will to join up with Bush. For the record, I don't think it's the fault of that now deposed government that they were attacked, but they were fools to hitch their wagons to Bush against strong popular opinion. Yeah, DD's post was stupid. He makes some good points in the GARM, but he's a regular in stupid posting here. Mostly when he goes party line. But he still doesn't brush against Poofie's dumb posts when he does the same.
Typical, giddyup. The Iraq war had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, until it started. Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until we put them there. The enemy of my enemy and all that. And though there wasn't an Al Qaeda connection with Iraq already, the Bush admin succeeded in creating one. Spain backed the US in an elective war against popular opinion. AQ attacked them for doing so. That's not going to make Spaniards back the elective war they opposed. It's just going to piss them off that their government picked a fight with a country that wasn't a threat to them, wasn't a threat to us and that ultimately resulted in a target on their backs. WE ARE ALL AGAINST TERRORISM. Stop pretending there are two sides (for and against Al Qaeda). Bush invented this, Spain's gov't backed it against strong public opinion and their people paid dearly. Of course they booted them. The same will happen here in a matter of months. And there will be dancing in the streets. Not just here, but all over the world.
