It's sad that, apparently 2/3rds of the Spanish people have lost courage (or never had it) for this fight. Giddyup 90% of Spaniard, like most of the rest of the world except, Bush, Blair, Sharon and the US Republican Party, just disagreed with supposedly fighting terrorism by needlessly attacking Iraq. Now Scott Ridder, Blix and the overwhelming majority of the world's nations and intelligence agencies have been proven right on the wmd and Iraq--Al Qaeda link. Why would the Spaniards change their minds after they were proven right?
Honduras pulls troops from Iraq NEWS WIRE SERVICES Wednesday, March 17th, 2004 President Bush urged his Iraqi allies yesterday to remain "strong and resolute and determined," but tiny Honduras followed Spain's decision and decided to pull its troops out of Iraq. Bush spoke a day after Spain announced its 1,300 troops would leave Iraq by June unless the United Nations assumes command and requests they stay. The President, speaking with Netherlands Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende sitting next to him in the Oval Office, vowed that terrorists will "never shake the will of the United States. We understand the stakes." Balkenende said it is important that the international community stands "shoulder to shoulder and shows its solidarity to fight against these terrible attacks. We share that same goal." Nevertheless, Honduras broke ranks and said it would pull its small contingent of soldiers out of Iraq. The 370 Honduran troops serve in the same international brigade as the Spanish troops. The decision marked an about-face from a day earlier, when Honduran President Ricardo Maduro said the forces would stay. There are other potential tests for what Bush has dubbed the coalition of the willing. Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller was urged yesterday to resign by disgruntled members of his Democratic Left Alliance after the party's approval rating fell to only 9% in the latest poll. The war is unpopular among Poles, but Miller's government has been hurt more by scandals and botched reforms. Miller has vowed to stay on as prime minister until next year's elections, but party officials say he may quit after Poland joins the European Union in May. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a strong supporter of the war, also faces an election this year. Howard could call for a vote this spring, but it could more likely be held in the fall. Polls indicate that although the war is widely unpopular in Australia, Howard holds comfortable leads in polls. http://www.nydailynews.com/03-17-2004/news/story/174359p-151851c.html
I find it disgusting that our elected representatives would admonish Spain the way they did yesterday in congress. A few of the more stupid comments...
Wow, Spain the Mouse that Roared!! Looks like Duyya, Tony, Delay and the boys are getting a little insecure. Come on Guys lets see if you can insult the rest of the world in to doing your bidding. What numskulls.
Hey, he may be a thug, but now, he's our thug. Back on topic, I find it interesting that in every case since this whole Iraq junk started, candidates in countries that are our critical allies have won by running against W... South Korea, Germany, and now Spain. Think about that and what that means for our country, the world, and the fight on terror.
So, Aznar not only mislead his won people and tried to influence the press into saying it was absolutely ETA, they also impeded the actual investigation by not coming clean with the German autorities. Now, can someone explain to me how misleading your people and interfering with a terrorist investigation is being tough on terrorism? While you're at it, explain to me again why Spain is appeasing terrorist by kicking out an administration that lies to them for political purposes and tries to influence an investigation for political gain? From the Financial Times... ____________________ Europe at loggerheads over how to co-ordinate on terrorism By Judy Dempsey in Brussels Published: March 18 2004 4:00 | Last Updated: March 18 2004 4:00 A turf war has broken out inside the European Union over who should be Europe's first counter-terrorism chief, a day before interior ministers hold an emergency meeting in Brussels to respond to last week's Madrid bombings that killed more than 200 people. Despite the call by European governments to step up co-operation in sharing intelligence, the council of ministers and the Commission, the EU's central institutions, and even member states on a bilateral level, cannot agree how to co-ordinate. The "counter-terrorism tsar" is supposed to remedy these shortcomings. Germany was reminded of this last weekend. Its federal criminal bureau said the Spanish authorities intentionally withheld information and misled German officials over the explosives used in the Madrid bombings. The Spanish conservative government had insisted the Goma 2 Eco dynamite for the explosives had been frequently used by Eta, the Basque separatist movement. On Monday, it admitted that was not the case. "Leaving aside this issue, everybody says they are in favour of co-ordination but nobody is in favour of being co-ordinated," said a EU diplomat. "The reflex of interior ministers is to jealously protect their powers on the national level even though the fight against terrorism is a global one. I don't know how much will change after March 11," he added. Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, has suggested having a special post established inside the council that represents the member states. This person would pull together all the counter-terrorism measures taken by the council. Currently, no committee inside the council or commission is responsible for all aspects of terrorism financing. "We don't have an overview of what is being done by the transport, justice, foreign policy, and economy/ financial councils to combat terrorism," said another diplomat. Mr Solana says the counter-terrorism tsar should come from within the council because interior affairs is still the prerogative of the member states. The Commission, which can propose common policies over combating terrorism but cannot implement them, says it should have the new post. "We might end up with two persons," said a commission official. "But if Tom Ridge, [US Homeland Security chief] will have two numbers in his telephone book for Europe's new anti-terrorism boss, I don't think that is a good idea. What we need to do is implement what we promised to do after September 11," he added. After September 11 2001, EU heads of state held an emergency summit at which they promised to speed up co-operation on security issues. They pledged to have a common arrest warrant in place by last January but five countries have yet to ratify it. They promised to establish joint investigative teams with the participation of Europol, the EU's fledgling intelligence services that security experts say has few powers. This has been delayed. Several member states pay lip service to Eurojust. Created in December 2001, it consists of senior magistrates, prosecutors, judges and legal experts from every EU country to co-ordinate the investigation and prosecution of cross-border crime. "A minimalist approach to Eurojust has been adopted by the member states," says a report last week drawn up by the council's security experts. The special working group on counter-terrorism and terrorism that report to the council are still based in the capitals instead of feeding consistently to EU security experts in Brussels Intelligence sharing has been slow. The Situation Centre (Sitcen), created by Mr Solana, provides external intelligence and analysis to the member states. Although the unit's external intelligence assessments has been helped by seven countries that have seconded one national intelligence analyst, eight others, including Ireland, Austria and Finland have yet to lend support.
Did Kerry switch parties? Biden? Daschle? 'Daschle, D-South Dakota, said the threat of Iraq's weapons programs "may not be imminent. But it is real. It is growing. And it cannot be ignored." ' 29 of 50 Democrats in the Senate and a bunch more Representatives voted for war. ( http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/11/iraq.us/ ) Nice try rewriting history glynch.
You know, when this first came down, I had the feeling it was a mistranslation so I actually lookjed for the original italian transcript to check it out, as I pretend to know a bit of italian. couldn't find it though. Turns out that it was a mistranslation, from David Brooks NYT column: Makes a lot more sense now.
Spain's decision to pull out of the war in Iraq is one of those events which truly seperate people, in that their reaction is predicated upon their pre-set position. Those who support the war and see it is somehow a part of the war on terror will see this move as giving in to terrorism, those who don;t support the war in Iraq and see it as taking away from the war on terror will view the former perspective as an off key oversimplification. Beyond those established reactions, though, there are a couple of other apects worth noting; One of the major undertones of this actions is that is signals a movement by European governments, who have the most experience dealing with terrorists, to retake control over their own role in the war on terror. As 9-11 was such a dramatic event, the US's victimization allowed America to define the war on terror for most of the rest of the world. Initially it seemed to be at least a suportable position, and even those nations which saw the invasion of Afghanistan as a strategic error followed suit because of 9-11, and because it appeared that the US was at least trying to pursue the war on terror for it's own sake rather than in suport of other US interests. Iraq created a division between many who saw it as A) a strategic error, B) not connected with the war on terror, and C) suspiciously in pursuit of US interests. The revelations of the lengths the administration was willing to go to distort perceptions in order to get it's war further weakened any connection most of the world and Europe n particular saw between Iraq and 9-11/terror, and now that Spain, for it's support of Iraq, has been the victim of it's won terror attack, with it's own government's attpets at deception thrown in, and the decision to pull out has clear implications of a decision to reject the US's leadership in that war. While it is probably the right move for Spain and Europe, it signals yet again the greatness of the blunder US officials made with regards to Iraq; complete international co-operation is the key element needed to combat international terrorism, and we had it AND we had the wheel. We could have done great things with it. We are now much further away from a solution than when we started, and Iraq, and all the lying, double dealing and manipulation which went along with it is completely to blame. Antother apsect is that Spain has, in connection with this event and the general mistrust towards the US, signalled that it will distance itself from the US and strengthen bonds with other European nations, diplomatically and economically. The US has relied on a sort of divide and conquer strategy when it came to pre-empting the rise in economic power of the EU, and Spain was one of it's two key hole cards. The next British election might drop the other. Implications upon implications.
That does make more sense, though one wonders how "resolved" the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has to be before terrorism is abated and what many of the major terrorist actions have to do with the Palestinian-Israeli dispute.
Cohen, polls showed that a strong majority of Democrats opposed the war initially. Republicans were about 70% or more for it from the beginning. Finally as the lies about wmd "deadly poisons" and "imminent danger" and 45 minutes till delivery of wmd, Niger uranium, Al Qaeda connections and all the other mistruths went on for months Bush and the Republicans prevailed. Per my recollection, public opinion polls only showed a majority of Demcorats supported the war in the week or so before the war started or once the war started. I don't think it is accurate to equate Democrats purely by the vote in Congress. The strong opposition to the war on the behalf of most Democrats was why Dean initially ran so strong. I won't be dramatic or resort to cliches by accusing you of trying to "rewrite history" I think rather you were just misunderstanding or inappropriately trying to narrow the definition of "Democrat to make your point.
Quite resolved. Pretty much everybody who studies the mideast closely, from thomas friedman to prince bandar, tends to agree that this is at the root of all problems; the muslim world gets equally, if not more, pissed off when they see american helicopters being used to blow up palestinians as we do when we see buses getting blown up.
But what does "quite resolved" mean? A Palenstinian state? Or the Jews wiped off the face of the Earth? Or somewhere in between?
