Terrorist attack in Spain

[Monte Carlo]

I don't grok why someone objecting to a War that has little to do with anti-terrorism is labelled an appeaser to terrorism.

Here we go again. I think that the main problem here is that we are all taking the bits of the issue we choose to discuss and not consider it as a whole. Look, Iraq is, to a certain extent, a red herring. So is Palestine.

 

Bin-Laden's call to Jihad in 1998 (I think) was unequivocal in it's objectives. Nothing less than a phased campaign to remove non-Muslims from the Arab world followed by a highly ambitious phase two, the establishment of a world-wide caliphate based on fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam. It's so outrageous it's almost laughable. Except for the fact that Al-Qaeda are deadly serious about it.

 

Objecting to the Iraq war is a totally laudable political stance. Not one I agree with, but hey that's democracy. The fact is that the Left are so annoyed that they couldn't stop it that they are fighting their own rearguard action to punish what they see as nothing less than a neo-conservative, pro-globalization conspiracy that's as bad as Al-Qaeda itself. This is where I part company completely with them.

 

This is a war of ideology. Choose your side. It ain't fun, because liberals might have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people they loathe. But the alternative is a dozen rucksack bombs coming to a railway station near you.

 

The War on Iraq had little if anything to do with the War on Terror.

 

Wrong. Bush junior is like Reagan: a turnip-ghost for the Left but a man of strident action. In much the same way that Reagan faced down the Soviet Union in the 80's, in a way that probably hastened the implosion of Communism, Bush (or more likely his neo-con policy wonks) have done some blue-sky thinking. After 9/11 they identified failed states that might, in future, facilitate those who would threaten the US in such an outrageous way...and take them out. Iraq was No. 1. Is it right? I'm not sure. Is it working? Too early to call. Is it a bold and unambiguous reaffirmation that targeting the USA is akin to putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger? Hell yes. Gadaffi mysteriously decided to reveal his WMD programmes and disable them soon after Saddam was captured. MYSTARY? I think not. The internal cogs of repression in Syria and Iran are beginning to slowly turn the other way.

 

To your first paragraph, yes al qaeda sees an opportunity to manipulate politics, something they've been doing for for years, a means to their goal of throwing out Western influence from Islamic nations.

 

Yes, but as phase one of a wider plan to make where you live part of their caliphate. As I said before, it might be laughable to us, but they are deadly serious. We all stand or fall together in the Western democracies on this issue, but people don't see it. Yet. I fear that the cost of a wake-up call will be rather high. I am an unabashed admirer of the arabic language and culture. I've read the Koran and found much wisdom in it. It doesn't mean that I wan't to live in Osama's idea of Utopia.

 

But you completely ignore the manipulation of American and other democracies by George Bush's Administration re: the Iraq War and its place in any current consequential strife.

Yes, mainly because I refuse to indulge in relativism on this issue. AQ threw the gauntlet down here.

 

 

I also don't see this as a highly leftist/liberal/appeaser move

 

They never usually do, and when they do it's too late.

 

Zapatero may be a leftist, and I don't agree that Spain should pull troops out of Iraq (though they made a foolish decision, there are obligations that go along with it)

 

Fully agreed.

 

I was talking to a very old and wise friend who is now in his late 80's. He remembers the build up to WW2, and tells me that today reminds him of then. People thought that they could do deals with Hitler. Or Stalin. Or Mussolini. The Americans thought it had nothing to do with them. Many British policy-makers couldn't care less what happened on mainland Europe as long as the Empire wasn't threatened. The Left and Right blamed each other and so it went on.

 

And the world went up in flames for five years.

 

Are we there? This is new territory. A war where the enemy doesn't roll tanks into the Sudetenland, but where he bombs railways stations to bend elections, where he flies passenger aircraft into buildings simply to make a nihilistic point and where there are no uniforms or flags to identify combatants.

 

Do we continue to blame George Bush because that's more accpetable in the coffee house or campus? Or do we build a consensus of sorts then vote Dubya out if we don't like him?

 

I genuinely don't know, but I do know that the liberal left in the West is playing "useful idiot" to Osama's tune.

 

Cheers

MC

[Deadeye Dragoon]

Here we go again. I think that the main problem here is that we are all taking the bits of the issue we choose to discuss and not consider it as a whole. Look, Iraq is, to a certain extent, a red herring. So is Palestine.

 

Bin-Laden's call to Jihad in 1998 (I think) was unequivocal in it's objectives. Nothing less than a phased campaign to remove non-Muslims from the Arab world followed by a highly ambitious phase two, the establishment of a world-wide caliphate based on fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam. It's so outrageous it's almost laughable. Except for the fact that Al-Qaeda are deadly serious about it.

 

Objecting to the Iraq war is a totally laudable political stance. Not one I agree with, but hey that's democracy. The fact is that the Left are so annoyed that they couldn't stop it that they are fighting their own rearguard action to punish what they see as nothing less than a neo-conservative, pro-globalization conspiracy that's as bad as Al-Qaeda itself. This is where I part company completely with them.

 

This is a war of ideology. Choose your side. It ain't fun, because liberals might have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people they loathe. But the alternative is a dozen rucksack bombs coming to a railway station near you.

Ah, but you say yourself, the goal is to drive Western people and influence from Arab and Muslim states. If that's the actual goal, then if Spain withdraws its influence, it won't be a target. They received that bombing for thier interference, and withdrawing that doesn't bring them to favour in al qaeda's eyes, at best it brings them to neutrality. IMO no political decision should be made with this (relations to a crap terrorist group) in mind, but based on your points it would seem a pragmatic way to defend oneself from terrorism--if the terrorists have a clear calculus for action against states, remove yourself from the equation.

 

Yes, after/if Western influences are removed from the Middle East, AQ may turn to others, certainly Spain would be an apt target historically and as an inroads to Europe. But the Iraq War as a reason for Spaniards to display their willingness to fight against al qaeda is hardly a reason at all.

 

Wrong. Bush junior is like Reagan: a turnip-ghost for the Left but a man of strident action. In much the same way that Reagan faced down the Soviet Union in the 80's, in a way that probably hastened the implosion of Communism, Bush (or more likely his neo-con policy wonks) have done some blue-sky thinking. After 9/11 they identified failed states that might, in future, facilitate those who would threaten the US in such an outrageous way...and take them out. Iraq was No. 1.  Is it right? I'm not sure. Is it working? Too early to call. Is it a bold and unambiguous reaffirmation that targeting the USA is akin to putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger? Hell yes. Gadaffi mysteriously decided to reveal his WMD programmes and disable them soon after Saddam was captured. MYSTARY? I think not. The internal cogs of repression in Syria and Iran are beginning to slowly turn the other way.

Iraq was not number 1. If anything Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan were, if the measure of guilt is ties to al qaeda, 9/11, and being a lousy government. That's the major mistake I see; while there are parallels with Reagan's Evil declarations, Bush doesn't appear to know who the enemy actually is. Pakistan--has nukes, was selling nuclear secrets to others, has an unelected military dictator in charge, was one of the only countries which recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government, is perhaps the state with the most populous al qaeda contingent, has its own state-sponsored pseudo-terrorism in Kashmir. (Pakistan though has long been a good guy/bad guy, both Reagan and Clin-ton IIRC removed and reapplied sanctions against them when it seemed to suit some stupid higher purpose. That's placating and appeasing a dangerous country, my friend. And so was choosing them for a base of operations for the Afghanistan war rather than one of the former SSRs. So was the recent addition of them to a higher-level ally status.)

 

Qadaffi's declaration was no mystery, he'd been working on improving relations with the West for about the last 5 years, viewing the opening of the oil markets well worth the abstention from WMD production and general "terror support" stuff. The timing is great for Bush but the reason is more self-helpful capitalist pragmatism by Qadaffi than fear of an invasion. At least IMO.

 

Iran has been turning up for the last decade as well, but the latest election was a farce and the Ayatollah is firmly in charge in the end. I see no great spike in Iran's movement to democracy from the Iraq War. They've given the IAEA lip service and scant inspections but have warned that they'll withdraw from the NPT if the West gives them too much crap. And of course their nuke program may be legitimate, certainly can't count on Western intelligence now to determine that.

 

Syria continues to support Palestinian groups, and be involved with skirmishes with Israel over Golan, I haven't seen any great spike there. Governmentalistically, they haven't made any sweeping reformations, and continue to be a pseudo-democracy, with public elections for most positions but still great military influence in the process.

 

Meanwhile Bush nearly made the stupidest decision imaginable pre-war, allowing Turkey to place troops in Northern Iraq or even staging from Turkey. Which surely would've led to a Kurdish rebellion and much more strife than now. Bush has made an ally of one nuke-toting non-democracy in Pakistan, and has not made any "bold moves" against North Korea, which is certainly more of a threat to distribute WMDs to anti-West groups than Iraq was, particularly since it actually has some. Finally, while it's good that we're now withdrawing our stagings at Saudi Arabia, they remain the least democratic nation in the ME (all others allow at least popularly elected parliaments or other positions. SA allows zero votes) despite being our largest ally there for the last 10 years. And we've moved on to Bahrain and Qatar, which in the ME are not great democracies either, relative to others. Meanwhile the poppy farms of Afghanistan have never been hit, allowing a continuing flow of money to al qaeda and a sleeping Taliban, warlords still run provinces there, the central government is weak and it will/would be quite easy for the anti-West factions to regain power as soon as the US withdraws.

 

While Bush's words of his ideologies make some sense, he doesn't back it up with the action you cite. Clearly if he is backing up his ideology with action, then the ideology he speaks of publicly is not his real ideology. Actions of his Administration do not equate to promoting Democracy as much as a flailing effort to redefine policy to something equally ridiculous, only with new names.

 

Yes, mainly because I refuse to indulge in relativism on this issue. AQ threw the gauntlet down here.

 

You cited al qaeda as manipulating Spain's democracy. Considering that there's more than one gauntlet here, and that America threw its own down when invading Iraq, rather than picking up any left for them there by AQ, this isn't a relativistic criticism, it's a factual one. The BA manipulated democracy as well. You want to blame AQ for causing Aznar's party to lose? You're missing a lot. It wasn't al qaeda-->9/11-->Afghanistan-->Iraq. It was al qaeda-->9/11-->Afghanistan-->(break) United States-->Iraq. Implying al qaeda forced a move on Iraq is silly, IMO.

 

I was talking to a very old and wise friend who is now in his late 80's. He remembers the build up to WW2, and tells me that today reminds him of then. People thought that they could do deals with Hitler. Or Stalin. Or Mussolini. The Americans thought it had nothing to do with them. Many British policy-makers couldn't care less what happened on mainland Europe as long as the Empire wasn't threatened. The Left and Right blamed each other and so it went on.

 

And the world went up in flames for five years.

 

Are we there? This is new territory. A war where the enemy doesn't roll tanks into the Sudetenland, but where he bombs railways stations to bend elections, where he flies passenger aircraft into buildings simply to make a nihilistic point and where there are no uniforms or flags to identify combatants.

 

Do we continue to blame George Bush because that's more accpetable in the coffee house or campus? Or do we build a consensus of sorts then vote Dubya out if we don't like him?

 

I genuinely don't know, but I do know that the liberal left in the West is playing "useful idiot" to Osama's tune.

 

Cheers

MC

 

Osama had no tune in Iraq. That's the main problem here, that the War on Iraq was not tied to the War on Terror, in billions of people's minds. Including millions of Spaniards. Even if one agrees with the policy of global protection and the need for every country everywhere to fight a global terrorist organization (which I do agree with), when a country stupidly invades a country that has little to do with terror yet claims it does, that is going to hurt the effort more than help it. My objection to Bush is not that he wants to fight terror, it's that he claims/ed invading Iraq was an important step in that fight, worth upsetting allies that could prove useful later in a truly related matter, and having a net result of more, rather than less, terrorism.

 

Spain voted out a party that supported a foolish and highly inciteful war. AQ took advantage of the War to prop it up as a show of Western belligerence. It's a damn shame that throwing out Anzar's party for idiocy coincides with an AQ goal, but what's the alternative? Rewarding actions that actually exacerbate the war on terror, fearful to be seen as terror-lovers? You want to blame someone for Spain's predicament, blame al qaeda, but also Bush. If Iraq had been a true target in the war on terror Aznar would have been much, much, much, much stronger, and Spaniards could see this.

 

Here's a bad analogy. Say the US warned that Canada was a terror threat. Due to loose borders, or evidence of AQ operatons being allied with its government, or something equally absurd on its face at least. Say a European country decided to join the lunacy and invade Canada, which lets assume was completely innocent of any terror-related charge. AQ flocks to Canada post-invasion, gains new recruits right on our doorstep and across the world, and just before that European country's election, explodes bombs there. You think that country should vote for the party that joined in an invasion of Canada for supposed anti-terror justifications? Perhaps if they are reelected, next invasion will be Mexico, with their faulted ideology, intelligence, reasoning, or whatever led them to invade Canada. And perhaps Aznar's party would've jumped on the bandwagon again if we decided to invade Cuba or Syria in a couple years for the same justifications we used to invade Iraq. "Showing resolve" in the face of terrorism is one thing, "voting for idiots" is something completely different. The former should not necessitate the latter.

 

Invading Iraq for the justification that Saddam was a horrible murderous dictator may have been acceptable, within the confines of a multilateral agreement that it was necessary. Propping up ridiculous claims of grave danger, mushroom clouds, and terror connections was a very dire mistake that is biting us in the ass. And will bite us in the future if we ever claim any other country is a danger because of these things. Iraq was alluring, being militarily crippled, already halfway under fly-overs, a humanitarian cesspool, and involved in a series of UN resolutions it was in violation of. But what it was not was tied to the War on Terror, surely no more than most other ME countries, and that shouldn't have been broached as a reason for invasion, nor tied ideologically to the action. We offered up an entire country on a silver platter to those who would foment real terrorism.

 

Hope I got the quote thingies right.

[Dark Lord Revan]

Agreed. There is Bush logic for ya. Oh wait, it is not logic, it is just plain stupidity. Bush has made the world a much more dangerous place by invading Iraq. If you can't take my word for it, take **** Clarke's who was the former US Counterterrorism expert for both Bush and Clinton. Same thing can be said about Spain though. In pulling out of Iraq they have shown would-be terrorists that such actions do have measurable results. The civilized world seems to be losing this global war on terror. First the terrorists strike in the financial heart of America killing thousands of civilians and destroying the most powerful symbols of the strength of American capitalism in the US. Then Bush swells the ranks of Al Qaeda and other terror organizations by invading Iraq instead of focusing on Afghanistan. Bush's war with Iraq effectively destroyed alliances that have existed since World War II thus dividing the west. After that Zapatero empowers the terrorists. And all the while the Israeli's keep killing innocent civilians in the West Bank and Gaza. The Arab people are pissed off. If things keep going the way they are going, how long will it be before the anger is so great that even moderate arab states are overthrown by fundamentalists and all of a sudden Al Qaeda has the bomb? If Bush wins a second term, all of these things could very well become a reality. That coupled with the growing American Nationalism and now, European Nationalism makes the future look pretty grim to me. People are beginning to stop thinking for themselves and letting others make decisions for them. It is already rampant in America where the people for some reason still trust George Bush even though that now it is common knowledge that Iraq had no WMD and the whole justification for going to war was nothing but a sham. It is also happening in Europe, look at how George Bush's ex-KGB buddy Putin has eliminated all forms of independant media in Russia. People need to do something about these bastards and not just picking up a damn sign and believing they are accomplishing something. People need to vote because that is the only way to make George Bush go away so that we can start cleaning up his mess.

 

Thus continues the madness of King George II

[Monte Carlo]

Paragraphing, please. For the love of god.

[Buns]

the current French government is right-wing and only squeeked in by a narrow margin to avoid Jean Marie Le Pen winning the last general election. Le Pen is, of course, the ex-leader of the deeply unsavoury far-right Front National.

Chirac crushed Le Pen in the second round of the 2002 presidential election, winning over 80% of the vote. The French Left couldn't advance any of their candidates beyond the first round, but they did rally behind Chirac to ensure that Le Pen and his Front National got no further. Not that Chirac depended on a belatedly, relatively unified Left to win -- their influence has been pretty negligible as of late. But there was still no way in hell that Le Pen would have won that election.

[tripleRRR]

Revan I could hardly understand a word in your post, try again please.

 

 

TripleRRR

[Dark Lord Revan]

Revan I could hardly understand a word in your post, try again please.

 

 

TripleRRR

Are you friggin' illiterate? If you have something to say about the content of what was said then I suggest you be a bit more specific.

[Monte Carlo]

the current French government is right-wing and only squeeked in by a narrow margin to avoid Jean Marie Le Pen winning the last general election. Le Pen is, of course, the ex-leader of the deeply unsavoury far-right Front National.

Chirac crushed Le Pen in the second round of the 2002 presidential election, winning over 80% of the vote. The French Left couldn't advance any of their candidates beyond the first round, but they did rally behind Chirac to ensure that Le Pen and his Front National got no further. Not that Chirac depended on a belatedly, relatively unified Left to win -- their influence has been pretty negligible as of late. But there was still no way in hell that Le Pen would have won that election.

That's not what I meant. Read my post. The fact that Le Pen made the final round showed how unpopular Chirac was and only won votes because of the opposition in the FN. I know Chirac won a landslide because M. Jospin's people had no option but to vote for Chirac.

[Buns]

the current French government is right-wing and only squeeked in by a narrow margin to avoid Jean Marie Le Pen winning the last general election

 

There was no squeaking-in on Chirac's part in either the first or the second round. Maybe you mean something else besides what you're saying.

 

The fact that Le Pen made the final round showed how unpopular Chirac was and only won votes because of the opposition in the FN.

 

You mean he only won votes because of opposition to the FN? Or Chirac somehow won because of opposition to Le Pen within the FN (...)? Or something like that - it's not really a big deal. It's normally a pleasure to read your posts, even if they do occasionally require some rewriting, by someone.

 

If L. Jospin did actually have a sizeable contingent of people that he could reliably call his, then he might have made it to the 2nd round like he was so smugly expecting to do all along.