Taken from another forum:
Interesting thing just occured in spain.
With the majority popular party slimly leading in the polls up until 3/11...the actions of the terroist has caused spain to do a complete about face.
Now the socialist appear to have dominated the recent elections, with 79%of the vote. Of course, one of the socialist platforms was being opposed to partaking in the coalition in Iraq. Now Spain is pulling out of Iraq by next month.
The news that the attack was appearently from al qaeda, galvanized spainish voters to reject the gov't current course and voted for change. Many of the voters were angry that they felt the govt tried to blame basque seperatist from their own nation, as it could have helped the popular party. While I don't pretend to know if that is what they tried to do or not, I believe the spanish gov't took the wrong course of action in response to the attack. More on that latter.
So why do I see the change as such a bad thing? Simple, they've bent to the will of the terrorist.
The terrorist who claimed to be punishing spain for their participtaion in Iraq had a desired outcome...to change the policy and get spain out. It looks like this might have been accomplished during the election.
So what now? Do they see the desires of the terrorist as something that they should appearently account for when making foriegn policy decisions; IE cultivate it so that it doesn't impede the will of fanatics who would murder innocent civilians living their ordinary lives?
What is especially troubling, is that it now may appear that the terrorist had connections with an al qaeda member who is jailed in spain in connection with 9/11 here in the US, and is probably why 3/11 was a significant date for them to carry out the attack. So how does spain deal with that? Would they then chose to release this individual for fear of further retribution, if it is demanded of them?
What about future issues? Does spain now turn it's back on the rest of the world for fear of offending fanatics? How will it deal with the ETA/Basque seperatist within it's own borders now? If you don't kill anyone, we will give you what you want?
What is sad though, instead of demonstrating to the spanish people WHY terrorism must be erradicated, the spanish have shown terrorist the way to victory
Interesting thing just occured in spain.
With the majority popular party slimly leading in the polls up until 3/11...the actions of the terroist has caused spain to do a complete about face.
Now the socialist appear to have dominated the recent elections, with 79%of the vote. Of course, one of the socialist platforms was being opposed to partaking in the coalition in Iraq. Now Spain is pulling out of Iraq by next month.
The news that the attack was appearently from al qaeda, galvanized spainish voters to reject the gov't current course and voted for change. Many of the voters were angry that they felt the govt tried to blame basque seperatist from their own nation, as it could have helped the popular party. While I don't pretend to know if that is what they tried to do or not, I believe the spanish gov't took the wrong course of action in response to the attack. More on that latter.
So why do I see the change as such a bad thing? Simple, they've bent to the will of the terrorist.
The terrorist who claimed to be punishing spain for their participtaion in Iraq had a desired outcome...to change the policy and get spain out. It looks like this might have been accomplished during the election.
So what now? Do they see the desires of the terrorist as something that they should appearently account for when making foriegn policy decisions; IE cultivate it so that it doesn't impede the will of fanatics who would murder innocent civilians living their ordinary lives?
What is especially troubling, is that it now may appear that the terrorist had connections with an al qaeda member who is jailed in spain in connection with 9/11 here in the US, and is probably why 3/11 was a significant date for them to carry out the attack. So how does spain deal with that? Would they then chose to release this individual for fear of further retribution, if it is demanded of them?
What about future issues? Does spain now turn it's back on the rest of the world for fear of offending fanatics? How will it deal with the ETA/Basque seperatist within it's own borders now? If you don't kill anyone, we will give you what you want?
What is sad though, instead of demonstrating to the spanish people WHY terrorism must be erradicated, the spanish have shown terrorist the way to victory
