Socialist claim victory in Spain

[Drake Tungsten]

Imagine how people will react. Do you think the ousting of Bush will be a terrorist victory then?

If the terrorists desired Bush being expelled from office, then of course it would be a victory for the terrorists. It's always a victory for the terrorists if they get what they want...

And Al Qaeda is definitely getting what it wants, in this case.

[Heresson]

I think it's sad that people turned back to Spanish gouverment because of those attacks, as they only indicate that their gouverment did the right thing fighting terrorists

[Shi Huangdi]

Yup. The Al-Qaeda attack succeded at making a country withdraw from Islamic territory.

I'd expect more terrorist attacks in Europe now, since now it will seem that Europeans are not willing to suffer casulties to support their allies.

Al-Qaeda, of course, will gain vast new prestige from this. They have demonstrated that their tactics are effective and put the "Crusaders" on the run.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'd expect more terrorist attacks in Europe now, since now it will seem that Europeans are not willing to suffer casulties to support their allies.

I agree. It's becoming obvious that Europe is the weak link in the Western alliance, a fact that Al Qaeda is sure to notice and do their best to take advantage of.

[Arrian]

The troop withdrawl thing doesn't surprise me. 80%+ of the Spanish public was against going into Iraq in the first place. Frankly, given those numbers, the prior government was effectively committing political suicide by going in. How they even managed to make the election close is beyond me.

I do think the withdrawl will send an unfortunate message to some people. While it happens to be the policy the vast majority of Spainards have always wanted, the proximity of the election to the bombings and the sudden U-turn in foreign policy directly after that will be interpreted by many as giving in to AQ. I'm not saying that is actually so, but rather than many will see it that way (both conservative westerners and nutbar Islamists).

The Spanish people have spoken, and that's what's really important. Whether or not I, an American, agree with the policies of their new government is really meaningless. It's up to them, and that's a good thing.

-Arrian

[Saint Marcus]

so what is Spain supposed to do? Invade some Muslim country and bomb the **** out of it, like the US usually does?

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

[Drake Tungsten]

An eye for an makes the whole world blind.

An eye for what?

[Shi Huangdi]

The Spanish people, were, however willing to support the Conservative party which wanted to keep those troops in before they realized their may be casulties.

And don't go with this "This isn't the war on terror, this is something seperate" BS. Before Saddam fell, that may well have been the case, and indeed Spain did not participate in the initial invasion. But after Saddam fell, Iraq has become integral to the West's effort. Some of the insurgents in Iraq are Jihadists, and are activley trying to set up a fundamentalist State there.

But the thing is, if we are sucsessful in setting up a democracy in Iraq, then we will have provided a sucsessful model of democracy in the Arab world that could inspire liberals throughout the region, and possibly provide another pole of opposition to the current thugocracies that rule the MIddle-East other then the jihadists.

Should the resistance to the occupation succeed however, it will provide an exmple that democracy won't work, maintain the jihadists status as being the only alternative the thugocracies, and the Iraqi regime that rises may be pro-terrorist if Islamists don't outright suceed in taking power after the chaos a coalition withdrawal would incur.

To rebuild Iraq and guide it's transition to Democracy, forces are needed there to battle the insurgents that are trying to stop and prevent it. Spain has retreated from the fight.

[WRW]

Originally posted by jasev


Well, the spanish society is used to be lied by the government. We see it normal, and this government has done it many times. We can live with it, and unfortunately the next governments will do similar things.

But to lie about the cause of 200 deaths while we were still looking for corpses in the rests of the trains was too much.

Originally posted by jasev
They hadn't. 3-5%, according to the opinion polls. And the spanish opinion polls have a huge tradition of mistakes. I think that Al-Queda may have balanced the elections, but the definitive fact were the lies by the government.

[Drake Tungsten]

And don't go with this "This isn't the war on terror, this is something seperate" BS. Before Saddam fell, that may well have been the case, and indeed Spain did not participate in the initial invasion. But after Saddam fell, Iraq has become integral to the West's effort. Some of the insurgents in Iraq are Jihadists, and are activley trying to set up a fundamentalist State there.

But the thing is, if we are sucsessful in setting up a democracy in Iraq, then we will have provided a sucsessful model of democracy in the Arab world that could inspire liberals throughout the region, and possibly provide another pole of opposition to the current thugocracies that rule the MIddle-East other then the jihadists.

Should the resistance to the occupation succeed however, it will provide an exmple that democracy won't work, maintain the jihadists status as being the only alternative the thugocracies, and the Iraqi regime that rises may be pro-terrorist if Islamists don't outright suceed in taking power after the chaos a coalition withdrawal would incur.

To rebuild Iraq and guide it's transition to Democracy, forces are needed there to battle the insurgents that are trying to stop and prevent it. Spain has retreated from the fight.

Spot on analysis. Nice post, Shi.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
But the thing is, if we are sucsessful in setting up a democracy in Iraq, then we will have provided a sucsessful model of democracy in the Arab world that could inspire liberals throughout the region, and possibly provide another pole of opposition to the current thugocracies that rule the MIddle-East other then the jihadists.

Turkey hasn't done anything like that. What makes you think a sucsessful Iraq would do anything like that?

[Solly]

A victory for terrorists. They are now aware that Spain's populace will negotiate with them.

[GePap]

I will repeat what i said at first, but which was ignored:

The PP claimed that going into Iraq, even against a supermayority of Spanish public opinion was the correct thing to do becuase it would help keep Spain safe.

This was demonstrably FALSE. Participation in Iraq did NOT make Spain a lick safer vs AQ, whether AQ attacked becuase of Spains participation in Iraq, or just becuase Spain is a western democracy, whichever you believe it does not matter-the Madrid attacked showed the contention that Spain's participation in the Iraq war did anything to keep Spain safer as a lie.

What if those 1300 troops had been sent by the Aznar government nearlky a year ago to Afghanistan? What if they had been used in internal security? I don;t know if doing either of those would have helped thwart this attack-but most certainly having them in Iraq did nothing to make Spain safer from AQ.

Sadly, it took a huge AQ attack to make this reality, that the danger to Spain is AQ and that participation in Iraq has done nothing to degrade it's abilities to attack Spain. So why then should a Spanish gov. continue a highly unpopular stance that does not even give any benefits to Spain?

As for the government handling-why would the Aznar gov, be so insistent about blaming ETA? Becuase if it turned out to be AQ, it would show false its Iraq premise.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by GePap
I will repeat what i said at first, but which was ignored:

Hello Mr Fun.

[GePap]

Where, where?