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Originally Posted by hannukah harry
first let me apologize because i'm not really adding anything to the thread topic. (also sorry for the vagueness, can't remember the groups names) the terrorists in spain did not cause spain to withdraw. the party in power at the time was already going to lose the election, and then tried to blame the bombings on the the local spanish terrorist group (ETA or something?). the spanish people did not agree with being there and were going to vote that contemporary govt. out. the bombings didn't change anything, other than giving you a false talking point.
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Originally Posted by powerclown
Interesting statement, to say the least.
If you'd care to do, say, 5 minutes of research, you'll find that Zapatero (as well as his Socialist party) was considered an extreme outside shot for Spanish Prime Minister before the Madrid bombings. It is widely acknowledged that the bombings so shocked the Spanish populace that they effectively proved to be the decisive factor in the general election that ousted the government.
But don't take my word for it, google away.
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Originally Posted by Zodiak
This statement is only half-true. While it is true that Aznar was ahead in the pre-election polls, it was not the shock of the Al Queda bombings that turned public opinion. Rather, it was the attempt of Aznar's government to blame the bombings on the separatists that sealed his fate by losing trust with his people, who were overwhelmingly against Aznar's foreign policy to begin with. Regardless, the polls were not so far apart as to give an "extreme outside" shot as you assert (3-5% lead, within the standard deviation, see article below). It was Aznar's to lose and he lost it because his government went roughshod over the other parties and he lied to his people about an important issue for political gain.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inter...168989,00.html |
My research precludes me from conceding that "this statement" is "half-true". It can just as easily be credibly described as a neocon influenced, Republican "talking point" "OP", designed to paint the critics of the Iraq war as "appeasers", in the midst, at that time of the collapse of any serious defense of the WMD ruse for the invasion of Iraq, and to further the attack on Kerry over his claim at a fundraiser, "that he's heard from some world leaders who quietly back his candidacy and who hope he defeats President Bush in November".
powerclown, my research experience on this subject convinces me that no one can reach an accurate conclusion about this matter in "five minutes" of searching. I've included three reports <b>[1}</b> at the bottom to counter your "extreme outside shot" observation of the Spanish Socialist party on the eve of the March 2004 election. Two reports show the Socialists trailing by "three to six" points, (a statistically reasonable gap, in terms of a legitimate, "come from behind" victory), and a third report, from "Time Europe" that a respected Spanish journalist, José Antonio Martínez Soler, that "just hours before the bombings, results leaked from private PP and PSOE polling showed the parties in a dead heat".
I do not know for sure whether Spanish voters were influenced into become "appeasers" of terror by a well timed bombing attack. I also know that you do not "know", either. You are influenced by whoever is driving your car for you.
I am confident that the war in Iraq was not originally pursued to "fight terror", and I think that it is absurd to take this <a href="http://counterpunch.org/nimmo04022004.html">CNN claim</a> seriously.
Quote:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in606353.shtml
Kerry Foreign Support Furor
WASHINGTON, March 15, 2004
........McClellan's remarks came a day after Spanish voters ousted the conservative party that had strongly backed Mr. Bush on the Iraq war.
Asked whether the Spanish election results gave credence to Kerry's claim that some foreign leaders want to see Mr. Bush booted from the White House, McClellan chuckled. ...........
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Talking points were promptly faxed to the appropriate players, and the "OP" took flight.....some examples:
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http://boortz.com/nuze/200403/03162004.html
.....Now Spain is loudly touting its plans to become one of the Axis of Weasels, joining Germany, France, Belgium and other Euroweenie countries in a program of appeasement toward Islamic Jihadists. How weak are the Europeans? Well, let's take this comment from Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission. Prodi says: "It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists ... terrorism is infinitely more powerful than a year ago."...
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=37603
David Limbaugh David Limbaugh WND Commentary Sen. Kerry, champion of the appeasers
Posted: March 16, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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http://www.techcentralstation.com/031704F.html
A Setback, Not a Defeat
By Iain Murray Published 03/17/2004
........."New Europe" isn't in as bad shape as some people have been saying following the Madrid outrage and the
subsequent Spanish election results. To read some commentators, you might think that the entire population of Spain had
raised the white flag to Al Qaeda, while it was only a matter of time before even the United Kingdom deserted the
coalition of the willing. Both these assessments are in fact far from the truth, as close looks at polling numbers will
reveal.
To take Spain first, the shift in power to the Socialist Party was entirely due to an increased turnout of voters. In
2000, about 21.5 million people voted in the Spanish elections. In 2004, 2.5 million more voted. The Socialist vote
increased by 3 million, while the Conservative vote dropped by only 700,000. This was no massive swing away from the
Partido Popular (PP) to the Socialists, but an effect of a small percentage of the population feeling motivated to vote
when otherwise they would have not. In fact, it seems likely that the PP's vote actually firmed up, given that opinion
polls before the Madrid bombings had the Socialists gaining on the PP even without the extra votes. By my calculations, on
a turnout equivalent to 2000, the PP would have received about 300,000 fewer votes than it did.
Close to 40 percent of the Spanish people voted for the PP despite the attacks, despite the accusations of lies and
despite the widespread unhappiness with Prime Minister Aznar's decisions on Iraq (90 percent opposition in some polls). It
would be a clear mistake to say that the 43 percent of Spaniards who voted for the Socialist Party did so only because
they wished Spain to leave the coalition of the willing and withdraw their troops from Iraq. In fact, it would not
surprise me if polls found that more Spaniards now supported the Aznar stance on Iraq than previously, despite the election results.
It is clear, therefore, that the Spanish elections hinged on the feelings of those 3 million extra voters, less than a
tenth of the voting population. They were, it appears, overwhelmingly young, something that in Europe at least invariably
favors left-leaning parties. It seems likely that the PP's unwise move to pin the blame for the bombings on Basque
separatist terrorists ETA before the evidence was in contributed to a feeling among this group that it had been lied to.
The group's vengeance was terrible for Spain and the war on terror, but its effect was disproportionate............
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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/inter...rvey_3-17.html
Online Focus
PUBLIC OPINION IN EUROPE
March 17, 2004
GWEN IFILL: Robin Niblett, do we see what happened in Spain with the new socialist government in Spain, is that something which might create a domino effect?
NiblettROBIN NIBLETT: I don't think so. The circumstances in Spain were quite specific and as I think a lot of commentators have pointed out recently, Zapataro really took advantage of a sense that the Spanish government of Jose Maria Aznar had lied, that they had used those few days after the attack to try to pin the blame on ETA as opposed to of allowing the possibility that al-Qaida might have been involved as well. So there was a very specific reason for the punishment that took place. When you look at each of the governments around Europe, they exist in very different political circumstances.
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http://www.time.com/time/europe/html/040322/tone.html
After two days spent insisting that the Basque separatists of ETA were behind the atrocities, Spanish officials conceded that they were looking at links between the Madrid attacks and five suicide-bomb strikes in Casablanca last year, which killed 33 innocents. French and Moroccan officials told Time that the Casablanca
March 11, 2004, now has its place in the history of infamy
— JOSÉ MARÍA AZNAR, Prime Minister
attacks, mounted by a shadowy Moroccan group called Salafia Jihadia, were inspired, assisted and financed if not directed by extremists who trained in al-Qaeda's camps.
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The following is the only excerpt included here of "Tme USA" coverage. The second paragraph counters any argument Spanish voters "appeased" terror:
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http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...601306,00.html
Did al-Qaeda Change Spain's Regime?
The Madrid bombing made the election a referendum on Iraq. Now, bin Laden's movement could develop a taste for preelection terror
By TONY KARON
* TIME Europe: A Strike at Europe's Heart
Posted Monday, Mar. 15, 2004
The reason voters chose doves over hawks three days after suffering the worst bloodshed on Spanish soil since the country's civil war is simple: the widespread belief that the country had become a target for Islamist terror because of its support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Spain might have been targeted anyway, because of its effective police and intelligence campaign that has netted a number of al-Qaeda operatives — or even simply because Andalusia before 1492 was the European foothold of the old Islamic caliphate that bin Laden dreams of reviving. But in the minds of many a Spanish voter, last week's attacks were al-Qaeda making good on bin Laden's vow, last October, to punish those nations that had supported Bush and Blair in Iraq.
Had this vote been held a year ago, the outcome would have been similar — polls last March found that as much as 90 percent of Spanish voters opposed their government's support for the war in Iraq. The latest terror attacks simply put the Iraq issue back at center stage. That much was made clear by the victorious 43-year-old Socialist Party candidate, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose key election promise was that he would withdraw the 1,300 troops sent by Spain to support the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Zapatero said Monday that the troops would be home by June 30, unless the United Nations was placed in charge of security in Iraq. "The war has been a disaster; the occupation continues to be a disaster," he said. "It has only generated violence."
Not that Spain is about to buckle before the bombers: Zapatero immediately vowed that his "immediate priority is to fight terrorism in all its forms." Despite misgivings over the conduct of U.S. policy in the Arab world, the Socialists have supported Spain's close cooperation with the U.S. to weed out al-Qaeda cells. But they complained that the Iraq invasion had nothing to do with fighting terrorism, and instead had distracted and detracted from that struggle.
Aznar's party was not helped in the days following the attack by its continued insistence on blaming the bombings on the Basque separatist group ETA, despite evidence pointing to radical Islamists, ETA denials and al-Qaeda claims of responsibility. If ETA had been responsible, of course, the attacks would likely have swelled support for the ruling party and its hard line on the separatists. Instead, the electoral rebuke of a leader who waged an unpopular war may give pause for thought to others in a similar position, first among them Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair who is expected to hold an election next year.
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Quote:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/inter...ain_03-16.html
Online Focus
TERRORISM & POLITICS IN SPAIN
March 16, 2004
The terrorist attack in Madrid and the electoral defeat of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar immediately following vindicate President Bush's characterization of the War on Terror as global in scope and his delineation of nations as being either with us or against us. More than these, it shows how indispensable is America's leadership in the war.
RAY SUAREZ: It's been a time of tragedy and political turmoil in Spain, a terrorist attack followed by an election bringing in a new government, one that promises to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. Two Spanish views on that that now.
Salvador Sala is the Washington bureau chief for the Spanish network TV3, Television of Catalunya. That's the region surrounding Barcelona. Jose Gijon is a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He's from Madrid. Well, Jose, in 72 hours from the time the bombs went off until the time the polls open, something major happened inside the country. What?
The toppling of Spain's Popular Party
JOse GijonJOSE GIJON: Well, what I think is that essentially there was a large majority of people who were not going to vote who decided to go to the polls in order to punish Aznar government. It was particularly due to the voters realized although it was not clear who were those who had committed those atrocities in Madrid that it might have been related to the war in Iraq.
Ninety percent of the Spanish population was against this war and they just -- instead of staying at home -- they decided to vote and to vote against Mr. Aznar. What is interesting to look at the polls from two days ago in Madrid is that Aznar's party support decreased by a little, it only decreased by 700,000 votes. What is very impressive is the increasing total participation, which increased by 8.5 percent, giving Mr. Zapatero the highest support in the history of Spanish democracy -- around 11 million votes.
You can only explain that by people who were going to stay home and decided to vote for Mr. Zapatero considering that they didn't support Mr. Aznar's stance on the war in Iraq.
RAY SUAREZ: So this was about Aznar's policy on the war. When you say punish Aznar and the government, punish them for what?
JOSE GIJON: For supporting a war which was ... which 90 percent of the Spanish population was against. And although people consider that ... many people consider that Aznar was going to vote, there was nothing to do and that's why the polls in my opinion were reflecting that Mr. Aznar had the possibilities to win or Mr. Aznar ... Mr. Aznar's vice president who was heading the ticket of Mr. Aznar's party, Mr. Rajoit.
I believe that means there was a long shift of people who were not going to vote that supported finally the socialist candidate. On the other hand, it is fair to say that the Socialists carry out a very, very, very good campaign. And that also means that Mr. Zapatero which was a relatively unknown figure, he was the new leader of the Socialist Party although he was there for four years and he attracted a lot of people. It is true that maybe before Thursday there was a slight advance of ... a slight advantage in terms for the popular party but it's true that also voters were already attracted by Mr. Zapatero's message.
The government's reaction to the bombings
RAY SUAREZ: Salvador Sala, a lot of attention and a lot of the things that voters themselves have told reporters go to the behavior of the government in the hours after the bombing. What was the government doing that made public opinion break so sharply in 72 hours?
Salvador SalaSALVADOR SALA: I think that that was really the key point of this election. I think that the Spanish people have the suspicion that the government doesn't explain the real things, the real people who were behind those attacks. They finger pointed at the first moment ETA.
Of course we have a long story of attacks in our country by ETA, the Basque terrorist organization. But they don't ... there are so many evidences that are not so clear and for that reason the people, well, there is a huge suspicion. I remember here in the United States the same day after the bombings there is one official quoted by writers here, an official of the American intelligence agency, who said, well, the multiplicity of these attacks the modus operandi, the way that this ... the perfect coordination of this attacks remind us a lot of what happened in this country in Sept. 11.
That means that there is a huge possibility in the first moments of these attacks for the main international intelligence agencies that they were the work of al-Qaida or something under the umbrella of al-Qaida, could be the possibility of one of those extremist parties from al-Qaida -- under the umbrella of al-Qaida.
RAY SUAREZ: But the government stayed with the ETA-Basque connection longer than the public believed them?
SALVADOR SALA: Yes, of course. I remember in Spain where just in the last hour of the day before the election the Saturday night, later when the minister of interior was in front of the press and he said, well -- hours before, he said, "we have in custody some members two Morocco's and two Indians." But just before the Sunday he said al-Qaida could be a possibility that there is an Islamic group behind those attacks. I think it was the key point for the people the next day, the next hours the people went to the polls and cast its vote against the popular party.
Withdrawing troops from Iraq
Ray SuarezRAY SUAREZ: The reaction outside of Spain to the prime minister designate's threat to remove the Spanish troops from Iraq has been very sharp and, Jose Gijon, some commentators have said that basically the terrorists have been able to set Spanish policy in this regard.
JOSE GIJON: I don't think so. I think the socialists had already shown in previous governments a strong loyalty in this case to the U.S. policy as Felipe Gonzalez did in the first Iraq war and also in the Kosovo War where Mr. Javier Solano, who was the secretary general of NATO and also former socialist foreign minister also had a leading role in the Kosovo campaign.
I believe that the new government which is entering now in Spain will be responsible and the only thing that -- and it will be loyal to its commitments until June 13. And then depending on the mandate, on the U.N. mandate, they will consider to withdraw the troops, but I don't think that the government right now will take the troops out immediately.
RAY SUAREZ: Was this part of the socialist campaign all along? Is it any surprise that this is what Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is promising, to remove the troops?
SALVADOR SALA: No, it's not a surprise. This was one of several issues in his campaign to pull out the troops from Iraq. But I try to put here on the table one thing. Imagine things happened here in the United States, an attack just before the coming presidential elections. If Kerry wins these elections, what will be the headlines in the newspapers or in the broadcast news? Will it be the terrorists win the elections in the United States? I don't think so.
RAY SUAREZ: Well today the presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said terrorists must not be allowed to think that they influence elections or that they influence policy. That would be a terrible message to send. Is it clear that that is not the message being sent?
JOSE GIJON: I don't think so. This is my feeling. In my case as a Spaniard maybe this is a little bit the message that is given out in the rest of the world but the message on my feeling and the feeling of people that are around me in Spain is that the feeling was that the Spaniards wanted to in some ways punish an intervention which was unpopular and it didn't matter.
Spain has been always sticking very highly to a fight against terrorism. We've been fighting both domestically and internationally. I don't think that the new government ... that the new government has to be seen as someone that has been elected because there are some ... there have been some influences due to terrorism. I don't think so. I think that the feeling in Spain is just that it was a clear message to send to the popular party in Spain saying that they didn't want to follow ... to continue with Mr. Aznar's policy. Maybe when you are ... when you are abroad you may ... there is a different message that have been taken but that was not the stance of Spanish voters.
RAY SUAREZ: Is the Spanish public clear on the distinction? Are they wedded, loyal to the war on terrorism and don't see that themselves as anti-American?
Salvador SalaSALVADOR SALA: Well, in Spain we have in many places I think that there is this kind of feeling. But I think at the end of the day the Spanish people are against the terrorism. If you remember the day after the attacks they were ... one-third of the country the people the citizens of the country behind the Spanish government, the Spanish government, and these huge demonstrations against the war. I think that is a clear message that the Spanish people is in this fight against the terrorism.
But I think now the question will be how we fight this terrorism. The way as George Bush do: hitting the enemy? Because there is a shadowy war against terrorism. Yesterday I remember there is a general from the French army who was hunting bin Laden in the Pakistan borderline and he said, well, if we capture Bin Laden tomorrow, this war will follow because it's like the idol of nine heads. You cut one head but you have several heads on this war.
And we'll have several elections. Normally the democracies elections have every four years an election. That will a long, long, battle, a long, long fight against terrorism. We have seen so many changes because we live in democracy here and many places. We have live in democracy. We will see a lot of changes. We will blame all of these changes, normal changes in democracy to the terrorists? I don't think so.
RAY SUAREZ: Salvador Sala, Jose Gijon, thank you both.
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<h4>[1]</h4>
Quote:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inter...168989,00.html
Aznar accused of cover-up as Spain mourns its dead
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Sunday March 14, 2004
The Observer
......Aznar's conservative People's party and his hand-picked successor, Mariano Rajoy, were ahead of the Socialists by between three to five points in opinion polls published last weekend. But, the same polls said, the ruling party would struggle to keep its absolute majority and might have to govern with the support of regional parties.......
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<h4>[1]</h4>
Quote:
http://www.economist.com/agenda/disp...ory_id=2513362
Who bombed the trains?
Mar 12th 2004
From The Economist Global Agenda
.......Unlike its backing for the war in Iraq, the Spanish government’s crackdown on ETA has proved popular. Recent opinion polls had shown the PP set to cruise to a third successive election victory under Mr Aznar’s chosen successor, Mariano Rajoy, with a lead of around six percentage points. But what now? Political commentators in Spain argued on Friday that the election might hang on who turns out to have planted the train bombs. If ETA proves to be the culprit, voters might re-elect the government to express their support for its tough stance on Basque terrorism (though some might conclude that its policy had been shown to have failed, and vote against it)..........
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<h4>[1]</h4>
Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/europe/html/040329/spain.html
Truth or Consequence
The Spanish government put the blame for the Madrid bombs on Basque terrorists. Was it an election ploy that backfired?
By JAMES GRAFF | Madrid
Posted Sunday, March 21, 2004; 9.59GMT
Did José María Aznar's government really try to help its party at the polls by pinning blame for the Madrid attacks on Basque terrorists — and downplaying al-Qaeda's possible role? That's the question that threw Spain into an uproar — and secured the defeat of Aznar's ruling Popular Party (PP) in the March 14 election. Even now Spain is asking itself: What did Aznar know about the people behind the Madrid blasts, and when did he know it?
A week before the vote, the last official opinion surveys put the PP ahead of the Socialists (PSOE) by four points. But on Wednesday night, just hours before the bombings, results leaked from private PP and PSOE polling showed the parties in a dead heat, according to the veteran Madrid journalist José Antonio Martínez Soler. With the country in crisis after the attacks, the government persisted in blaming the Basque terrorists of ETA — even after news broke of an al-Qaeda connection, reviving the issue of Aznar's support for the war in Iraq, which 90% of Spaniards opposed. On election day, the Socialists surged to an astounding 5% lead over the PP......
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Day in and day out, on these threads, I read statements posted by people who seem to "know", asserted as "fact", so much more than I do. I'm too suspicious for my own good, I guess. Otherwise, I wouldn't be so distracted, contemplating the unlikelihood of two middle eastern men, each with a $25 million price on his head, the first, accompanied by a dozen chidren, five wives, advanced kidney disease, tall enough to tower over everyone around him, with a face seen in photos by every sighted person, eluding capture of himself or the closest members of his entourage for more than 1400 days, while pursued by the most determined and technically and logistically able force ever tasked for the hunt, and the second, able to operate offensively, seemingly at will, hindered by a prosthetic leg, without benefit of terrain suitable to conceal his movement, seeming to pin down more than 100,000 U.S. troops and millions of Iraqis as he reportedly leads an insurgency through a continuous, successful series of bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, and other acts of sabotage, served up in timely communiques and videotapes.
Go figure !!! |
07-22-2005, 10:31 PM
