Spain Votes in Election After Attacks

[playahata1]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040314/ap_on_re_eu/spain&cid=518&ncid=716

MODS: please pull if this is a dupe.

Looks like they are HAMMERING Aznar & Company, both in and out of the polling place.

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By ED McCULLOUGH, Associated Press Writer

MADRID, Spain - Spaniards voted Sunday in general elections thrown wide open by a reported al-Qaida claim that it staged deadly rail bombings last week to punish the government for supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq (news - web sites). Protesters shouted "murderer" at the ruling party candidate as he cast his ballot.



Some voters also blamed the government for Spain's worst terror attack, saying President Jose Maria Aznar invited the attention of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terror group by allying Spain with Washington in the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

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[slor]

1. I guess Diebold does not...

have a Spanish e-voting unit yet.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. The attempt to manipulate information about this tragedy...

for political purposes is unconscionable:

"Fueling anger were suspicions that the government withheld information in the investigation to avoid political fallout from the Thursday bombings, which killed at least 200 people and wounded about 1,200. The government had initially blamed the Basque separatist group ETA."

I hope the Spanish PP goes down, followed by Blair and Bush.

[Zomby Woof]

3. good!

Spain is responding rationally by linking the cause and effect. If only we can be so enlightened come November.

[CerealMurderer]

12. And the bombers declare victory

It's a no win situation we have here. If working with America gets your country bombed by thugs and you cave to the pressure you lose to the right. If you stand up to the bombing terrorists and keep your America backing leader in office you lose to the left.

There are no winners when dealing with terrorists.

[bemildred]

13. It's more like Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)

in Nuclear strategy. There is no defense, only offense.
The only way to "win" is to leave the other guy alone.

Of course there are differences too, but strategically it
is much the same, you cannot defend yourself, all you can do
is threaten sufficient retaliation as to make the attack
pointless. It this case we have not even managed that, every
time the terrorists attack, we do our best to provide more
recruits for the terrorist network.

[joeybee12]

15. Welcome, but I really disagree with your reasoning...

...the Spanish people can be winners by telling Anzar and his lying thugs what they think of them. The Spanish people, like the American and British people, were systematically lied to by the filth in their government. Invading Iraq had nothing to do with fighting terror--in fact, it diverted attention and resources away from the true war on terror, and now we're blind to new groups and new terror.

I don't think Bush is doing a bad job fighting terrorism--I DON'T THINK HE'S FIGHTING IT AT ALL!

[many a good man]

4. Unpalatable theory

Let me just throw out this theory for people to chew on. Aznar's PP was aggressively taking on the terrorist group ETA. There are reports of collusion between ETA and AQ. Its plain that blaming the attacks on AQ would hurt the PP whereas blaming it on ETA would strengthen the PP.

What if ETA designed the attacks in such a way that AQ takes the blame in order to take down their hated adversary the PP?

[matcom]

5. only problem with that is

i have heard NO expert claim that ETA and AQ had ANYTHING to do with each other.

actually just the opposite. all of the experts (that I have seen anyway) have gone out of their way to state the opposite

[playahata1]

14. And why would they want to work with each other?

There are religious (assuming that most Basques are Christian) and language barriers, to start with.

[samsingh]

6. the ETA does not have the sophistication to do this type of attack

[freeforall]

7. My initial response

when I read about the bombings, and that the government was blaming the Basques, was that they were not responsible, but maybe AQ. It didn't fit the ETA modus operandi.

Alos, when I read Friday that if it was the ETA, then the Spanish gov't would look good because they were against the ETA. If it was AQ, the the gov't would be in trouble because the Spaniards would realize it was because Aznar dragged them into the Iraq war.

[bemildred]

8. Theories are a dime a dozen.

This is not riciculous, but lacking any substantive
evidence to support it, and knowing the Spanish government's
earnest desire that something like this should be so,
it seems a bit of a stretch.

[belle]

9. What, like "Strangers on a Train?" I thought of that, but...nah.

[many a good man]

10. Common knowledge in Spain

Its commonly believed in Spain that ETA has links to AQ, the IRA, and FARC in Colombia. While they do not have an agenda in common, they collaborate on money laundering and arms smuggling. There have been news reports in Spain that when ETA was placed on the international terror watch list and their bank accounts frozen, that investigators found money trails in common with Al Qaeda. Here a couple of links that purport ties between the two:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,658668,00.html">Eta has Stinger missiles bought from Bin Laden

http://www.ncmonline.com/content/ncm/2001/oct/1001spain.html">In Spain: ETA and Al-Qaeda Forge New Anti-EU Alliance

Again, I don't think there's anything conclusive, but I just wanted to throw this out for consideration.

[bemildred]

11. That is not unlikely at all.

No doubt they have contacts with various government's
agencies from time to time as well.