US criticises Spain

[The Large One]

From BBC website

US 'appeasement' warning to Spain

Two senior US officials have warned against "appeasement" in the wake of last week's train bombing in Spain, in which 201 commuters were killed.

The attacks contributed to the surprise election victory of the socialists, who have promised to withdraw Spanish troops serving in Iraq.

The most senior Republican in the US Congress, Dennis Hastert, accused the Spanish people of appeasing terrorists. The top US military officer warned that weakness was likely to invite attacks.

The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says Mr Hastert has stepped into a diplomatic minefield not caring much where he treads.

He adds that the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives - who is third in line to the presidency - has expressed publicly the view that many Republicans have held privately.

"Here's a country who stood against terrorism and had a huge terrorist act within their country and they chose to change their government and to, in a sense, appease terrorists," Mr Hastert said on Wednesday.

His views will not be backed by the White House, which is hoping for some continuing alliance with Spain, but they capture the mood of America, our correspondent says.

Even Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry - a strong critic of administration's policies on Iraq - has called on the new Spanish government not to pull its troops out.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Richard Myers, also expressed concern on Wednesday.

He did not criticise the new Spanish government, saying every country had to make its own decision about how it supports the war on terror. But he added that this was not a conflict where neutrality was an option.

"If you look back through history and you look at situations that require people... to stand up and lead and be counted against various threats, appeasement just hasn't worked," he said.

"Weakness is provocative," Gen Myers added.

Spanish police believe last Thursday's attacks on packed trains in Madrid were carried out by Moroccan militants linked to al-Qaeda.

Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has said his position on Iraq is unchanged despite an appeal from Mr Bush not to withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops there.

He insists he will do so unless the UN intervenes in Iraq.

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How to win friends and influence people - slag them off. Did it not occur to the US the Spanish people might not have wanted to go to war in the first place? This was their first opportunity to vote that government out. FFS, it's the Spanish people's choice, not the US's. I though the US was supposed to support democracy. Not everyone is a warmonger.

 

[bhaexpress]

I suspect that it we had an election right now we'd find that most here don't have a lot of time for American policy in Iraq either and if it were to become a key issue (even without following a grevious terrorist attack) it might be enough to see a cahnge of government.

 

[Jambo Seagull]

So basically an electorate who think that their country's involvement in Iraq has been a total f***ing disaster which has precipitated the events in madrid last week are guilty of appeasement, eh? Who the f*** do the Americans think they are? If Aznar had been more straight with his people and said after the bombs that either he did not know what caused this or that it was possibly or probably the work of Al Qaeda rather than blaming it on ETA when any idiot could see it had nothing to do with ETA the socialists probably wouldn't have got in. People don't like being lied to. Blair should think long and hard about what happened last week in Spain not just last Thursday but also last Sunday.

 

[Easy 10]

It does open the door somewhat to terrorists though. By striking Madrid on the eve of an election, they've effectively bombed Spain out of Iraq - a strategic triumph for Al Qaeda.

Could this set a trend in the run-up to elections in other countries ? Unlike Spain, the opposition party in this country backed the war on Iraq as well, so in terms of getting British troops out of Iraq, they wouldn't achieve much on that front. But Blairs prospects of winning the next election would be dealt a hammer blow if there was blood on his doorstep from an Al Qaeda attack on London for our involvement in Iraq. Are we getting ot the stage whereby terrorists have a direct influence on election results ? If Spain is anything to go by, we're already there.

 

[CHAPPERS]

They've got a point but it's not surprising after the attacks that the Spanish people chose not to vote for the people that arguably caused the Madrid bombs (their government). I imagine the same would happen here and unfortunately so do Al-Qaeda.

 

[Meade's Ball]

There is only one active way to make ourselves safer (outside of bomb-proof letter boxes etc) and that's to go on the march on Saturday in London or demonstrations around the country.

 

[The Large One]

I suspect that it we had an election right now we'd find that most here don't have a lot of time for American policy in Iraq either and if it were to become a key issue (even without following a grevious terrorist attack) it might be enough to see a cahnge of government.

The opposition in this country were also in favour of sending troops into Iraq, so if this was a factor, who would the new government be? I think that the vast majority of British people have now accepted that Tony Blair lied his way into war, and people have moved on from that. You notice he doesn't talk about Iraq that much these days.

He talks about terrorism, but, to a certain extent, that is a different issue. Remember, Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were no great allies.

 

[London Irish]

Are we getting ot the stage whereby terrorists have a direct influence on election results ? If Spain is anything to go by, we're already there.

No - that is the ignorant US Republican analysis. Jambo has called it correctly, the Spanish electorate were punishing an evasive, lying government who failed to rise to the challenge that the Madrid bombs set them. That's not the same thing AT ALL as saying the bombs influenced the election result.

 

[Easy 10]

No - that is the ignorant US Republican analysis. Jambo has called it correctly, the Spanish electorate were punishing an evasive, lying government who failed to rise to the challenge that the Madrid bombs set them. That's not the same thing AT ALL as saying the bombs influenced the election result.

If Madrid hadn't been bombed, then Spains ruling party would not have lost that election. Their governments reaction to that terrorist atrocity, as you rightly say, cost them the election. But the fact remains that it was the terrorists who put the government in that position and forced the issue. In that respect, the bombs DID influence the election result. In no way can they be dismissed as an irrelevence.

 

[Eastleigh Seagull]

The real consequence of the election as Easy points out is that the terrorists will feel they can influence an election. The opinion polls before the attack showed a fairly comfortable win for Aznar. the handling of the attack in blindly blaming ETA was I think the real disaster by the government.

 

[Eastleigh Seagull]

I guess I will just repeat exactly what Easy wrote - sorry. But of course you can never have too much ignorant US Republican analysis - whatever the facts say

 

[Man of Harveys]

It's actually quite simple and it's called democracy: the government does something which 90% of its public vehemently opposes. As a consequence of this, something awful happens to innocent members of the public. The same outraged public then votes out the government which by choosing to ignore the vast majority of its population, brings terror to its streets.

Sounds fair enough to me.

it wasn't outrage about the PP's attempts to deflect the blame to ETA straight away that cost them the election - it was the fact that virtually the entire population of Spain hadn't wanted to go to war in the first place and was now reaping what its government had sowed.

The Spanish anti-war marches made ours look like the Crystal Palace away support getting out of its motorbike and sidecar.

 

[Easy 10]

It's actually quite simple and it's called democracy: the government does something which 90% of its public vehemently opposes. As a consequence of this, something awful happens to innocent members of the public. The same outraged public then votes out the government which by choosing to ignore the vast majority of its population, brings terror to its streets.

Sounds fair enough to me.

it wasn't outrage about the PP's attempts to deflect the blame to ETA straight away that cost them the election - it was the fact that virtually the entire population of Spain hadn't wanted to go to war in the first place and was now reaping what its government had sowed.

You are right in stating the vast majority of Spaniards did not want to go to war in Iraq - but the fact remained that those same voters were NOT going to vote out the very same government who took them to war in Iraq, until the terrorists struck in Madrid.

Those bombs changed everything, and have now set a dangerous precedent.

 

[fatbadger]

The real consequence of the election as Easy points out is that the terrorists will feel they can influence an election. The opinion polls before the attack showed a fairly comfortable win for Aznar. the handling of the attack in blindly blaming ETA was I think the real disaster by the government.

Precisely - the government's behaviour over the bombing lost them the election, not the bombing itself.

I assume that those of you that think terrorism won this election, or that the Spanish people 'appeased' terrorism with their decision would also agree that the Italians that dumped Mussolini for placing his country in a state of war with others, bringing death and destruction to their towns, and sending the sons, brothers, husbands and fathers off to die in support of his own twisted philosophy and the twisted philosophy of an 'ally' he had put his country in hock to, were wrong, or were appeasers, or whatever other stupid insult you want to pile onto the Spanish for their courageous and principled decision.

 

[Easy 10]

I'm not saying that terrorism won the election - I'm saying that it was a factor in its outcome. The Spanish government only have themselves to blame for losing the election in the way they handled the aftermath of the atrocity - but it was the terrorists who put them in that position. The timing of the attack effectively set the agenda by which that government would stand or fall, and basically wiped out all other policies in their party manifesto. In effect, the terrorists made that one issue the defining issue in the entire election, and the government would stand or fall by their reaction to it, regardless of any other issues and policies.

 

[Man of Harveys]

Those bombs changed everything, and have now set a dangerous precedent.

Mm, not at all sure about that - I doubt very much whether psychotic loons who think little of blowing up innocent people on trains give a monkey's toss about whether a "precedent" has been set somewhere or even stop to consider the election results of politicians who have been opposed them, for that matter.

Not quite sure what else one might have expected an angry Spanish public to do when Aznar's posturing and backslapping of George Bush had come home to roost. Hard to ignore that issue in favour of the usual domestic stuff which, as you say, would probably have clinched the election for Aznar.

This is unrelated to this discussion: a work contact of mine in Madrid has a nine year old daughter whose schoolmate was on a train at a station that day. As the daughter has run ahead, the mother shouts at her to get off the train so they can catch it together. The girl jumps off - and minutes later a bomb explodes on the train at the same spot she'd just been standing.

As they have two minutes to wait, mother and daughter move down the station platform to a quieter spot. They get on the next train - on which a bomb ALSO explodes, again at the spot where they would have been standing had they not moved down the platform. This all happened on the morning of the girl's ninth birthday.

 

[Eastleigh Seagull]

We do forget the human side of some of these tragedies all too often. Thankfully things like the REMF should help us all to bring back into focus what these indiscrimante attacks are all about.

The point about Spain was that without the attacks Aznar would have won. Also the excuse about the war is wearing a bit hin as well - Turkey didnt support the war, Indonesia didnt support the war and there will be many others.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

The big fixture in "The War Against Terrorism" (aka TWAT) is still to come.

What will the Americans do when the first democratic elections in Iraq deliver the wrong result for them?

 

[London Irish]

The real consequence of the election as Easy points out is that the terrorists will feel they can influence an election. The opinion polls before the attack showed a fairly comfortable win for Aznar. the handling of the attack in blindly blaming ETA was I think the real disaster by the government.

Eastleigh, were you aware that the last opinion polls published before the legal ban on them prior to the election showed that Aznar's support was slipping? That was before the bombings.

I think both you and Easy should be very wary of giving credit to the bombers for winning the election. But if you want to go down that road, that's up to you, but it is an agenda currently being driven by the Washington and Blairite right-wing hawks.

 

[Easy 10]

Mm, not at all sure about that - I doubt very much whether psychotic loons who think little of blowing up innocent people on trains give a monkey's toss about whether a "precedent" has been set somewhere or even stop to consider the election results of politicians who have been opposed them, for that matter.

Unfortunately, and frighteningly, I think you have to give Al Qaeda more "credit" (if thats the right word) than that. We're not talking about some disaffected loon who has bought a few pounds of semtex, strapped it to a waistcoat and blown himself and a load of civilians to bits. The attack in Madrid saw 10 bombs detonated almost simultaneously. That takes organisation and guile. It shows that, like the attacks on 9/11, this terrorist organistion is capable of planning and carrying out hugely complex and audacious attacks on a grand scale. Unfortunately for us, this lot know what they are doing. Their attacks are planned meticulously, and to think that there is no underlying political strategy behind each attack would be naive. Evil, yes. Psychotic, absolutely. But stupid ? Sadly not.