Outcome of the Spanish elections-discussion.

[Colonel Olrik]

The news in Spain should be obviously good for Al Queda: Kill enough civilians and the target nation will reward you by doing what you want (pull its forces out of Iraq). Osama is likely smiling at his puppets. That doesn't seem to hold true for the United States and a select few others though.

They shouldn't have gone to Iraq in the first place. Not with 80% of the population against it. The same is true in Britain, Poland or Portugal. They are "retreating" (not quite a retreat, since they're staying until the combined date of July, 30) not because of the attack, but because the decision of going into Iraq was made against the wishes of the majority and the main opposition party.

Going into war must be a national agreement, not a decision liable to change with an electoral process.

[salm]

They shouldn't have gone to Iraq in the first place. Not with 80% of the population against it. The same is true in Britain, Poland or Portugal. They are "retreating" (not quite a retreat, since they're staying until the combined date of July, 30) not because of the attack, but because the decision of going into Iraq was made against the wishes of the majority and the main opposition party.

Going into war must be a national agreement, not a decision liable to change with an electoral process.

are you sure that the withdrawel has absolutely nothing to do with the attacks? perhaps, but to most people, i think, it will still look like spain is pulling out because of the terrorists. post hoc ergo propter hoc.

[Colonel Olrik]

are you sure that the withdrawel has absolutely nothing to do with the attacks? perhaps, but to most people, i think, it will still look like spain is pulling out because of the terrorists. post hoc ergo propter hoc.

I know. That's what I said in my opening post. That's why I'm perplexed with the situation. I don't know what could have been done better (besides presenting a unified EU block and not going into iraq), or what should be done now.

Perhaps, like CaptChewie already said, postponing elections a week.. But fuck, that would also be conceding to terrorism.

[Patrick Degan]

If Spain actually had postponned or even cancelled the elections, that would have been the victory for the terrorists. Furthermore, anybody who really is surprised at this outcome either has a short memory or simply wasn't paying attention to the millions of Europeans driven to rage at their governments dragging their countries into a suspect war despite the clear will of the people opposed to any such course. That sort of anger does not damp down in just a year.

The whole formulation, which seems to be emerging from the Right, that the rejection at the polls of the pro-war Anzar government resulted from the Madrid bombing is pure scaremongering.

[Crown]

The news in Spain should be obviously good for Al Queda: Kill enough civilians and the target nation will reward you by doing what you want (pull its forces out of Iraq). Osama is likely smiling at his puppets. That doesn't seem to hold true for the United States and a select few others though.

What should have the Spanish done? Keep troops (or whatever their involvement in Iraq is) inside Iraq, despite 90% of the electorate being agains the operation in the first place, and now having won a mandate being opposed to it, they should reconsider just to spite Osama?

While this may seem as 'appeasment' and 'weekness', show me where they have said they wouldn't hunt the people responsible for the Madrid bombings, and then Osama might have a cause to smile.

[Rakuseki]

I fail to see how anyone can deny that this is a huge victory for terrorists everywhere. Spain stands by the United States in its war with Iraq and is hit with terrorism and summarily they pledge to get the hell out of Dodge.

Attacks only come at you if the aggressor believes you’re weak and Spain succumbed when they didn’t have to. You can’t react to aggression by putting your tail between your legs and trying to appease these bastards—you find them, kill them and whatever apparatuses are helping them accomplish their goals.

So you’ve got to hand it to the terrorists. They gauged the mettle of the Spanish people correctly. When someone is willing to hit back, they literally say ‘No mas.’ It's not about just finding the people directly responsible for the Madrid bombings—that's a given. It's about one attack causing the electorate to come out in mass numbers for the opposition who will seek to appease and toy around with terrorists instead of killing them. You can't treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue and expect results.

[BoredShirtless]

I fail to see how anyone can deny that this is a huge victory for terrorists everywhere. Spain stands by the United States in its war with Iraq and is hit with terrorism and summarily they pledge to get the hell out of Dodge.

Wrong. The Socialists made getting out of Iraq one of their main campaign promises. Meaning, they pledged to get out before last Thursday.

Attacks only come at you if the aggressor believes you’re weak and Spain succumbed when they didn’t have to. You can’t react to aggression by putting your tail between your legs and trying to appease these bastards—you find them, kill them and whatever apparatuses are helping them accomplish their goals.

Wrong. Only the ignorant sees Spain as weak. See above.

So you’ve got to hand it to the terrorists. They gauged the mettle of the Spanish people correctly. When someone is willing to hit back, they literally say ‘No mas.’ It's not about just finding the people directly responsible for the Madrid bombings—that's a given. It's about one attack causing the electorate to come out in mass numbers for the opposition who will seek to appease and toy around with terrorists instead of killing them. You can't treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue and expect results.

Could you be anymore wrong?

[Rakuseki]

Wrong. The Socialists made getting out of Iraq one of their main campaign promises. Meaning, they pledged to get out before last Thursday.

We all know what the Socialist Party’s platform was. My contention, however, is that the Spanish people largely turned out for the Socialists because of the Madrid bombings. If I can recall correctly, up to that attack, the current government was looking forward to a somewhat comfortable margin of victory. I’m not attacking the party politics, but rather the people who voted for the party of appeasement in that country as a result of the Madrid bombings. But if I’m wrong, present some hard facts and I’ll kindly concede.

Wrong. Only the ignorant sees Spain as weak. See above.

So I’m somehow ignorant because I see the Spanish as being weak for succumbing to the will of terrorists? See above.

Could you be anymore wrong?

In short, no.

[Crown]

We all know what the Socialist Party’s platform was. My contention, however, is that the Spanish people largely turned out for the Socialists because of the Madrid bombings. If I can recall correctly, up to that attack, the current government was looking forward to a somewhat comfortable margin of victory. I’m not attacking the party politics, but rather the people who voted for the party of appeasement in that country as a result of the Madrid bombings. But if I’m wrong, present some hard facts and I’ll kindly concede.

One could also argue that the former government's behaivour during the subsequent days (ignoring intelligence information pointing to Muslim radicals, and trying to place the blame on Eta only), and blantantly lying to the electrorate could also have been a mitigating circumstance in their defeat in the polls ... but please continue with your 'Spainish are weak' monologue.

So I’m somehow ignorant because I see the Spanish as being weak for succumbing to the will of terrorists? See above.

Well if ther was some kind of substance above, then maybe we would. But here's a hint for you sparky; Spain has been dealing with terrorism before it became all, like fashionable and stuff.

In short, no.

You know it takes a special kind of an idiot to make the resident Village Idiot seem like a sage. I salut you!

[BoredShirtless]

Wrong. The Socialists made getting out of Iraq one of their main campaign promises. Meaning, they pledged to get out before last Thursday.

We all know what the Socialist Party’s platform was. My contention, however, is that the Spanish people largely turned out for the Socialists because of the Madrid bombings. If I can recall correctly, up to that attack, the current government was looking forward to a somewhat comfortable margin of victory. I’m not attacking the party politics, but rather the people who voted for the party of appeasement in that country as a result of the Madrid bombings. But if I’m wrong, present some hard facts and I’ll kindly concede.

Here's the deal: you provide hard facts which shows the Socialists were pre-Madrid the party of appeasement for terrorists, and I'll go find a source which shows the majority of Spaniards didn't want to go to war in Iraq.

Wrong. Only the ignorant sees Spain as weak. See above.

So I’m somehow ignorant because I see the Spanish as being weak for succumbing to the will of terrorists? See above.

The Socialists aren't succumbing to the will of terrorists; they are succumbing to the will of the people.

[Oddysseus]

Exactly. Spain is opposed to this and most wars. Just because they don't want to fight our fights, and do what we say and when, they aren't weak. The government went to war knowing they lacked support. This is the cost. They don't want to suffer loses for this reason, a war they consider unjust.

The Spanish (the British, French, Greek, Turkish, etc.) know very well about terrorism, having been accustomed to fighting it for the last 50 some years (and before that you, of course, had the various guerilla wars, civil war, etc.). They can take a bloody nose really well, they lots of practice at it. When they get hit they unify and resist it. They fight back. The mistaken position is that they are fleeing the threat.

And as we can see from the Socialist campaign, they aren't pulling out of the fight against terrorism. They just want it to be a real global affair, not one run from the White House. That seems pretty reasonable.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Here's facts:

1. The majority of the Spanish population opposed Iraq long before Madrid.

2. Before Madrid, the current government was expecting a comfortable margin of victory despite going to Iraq against the will of the people.

3. After the bombing, the people elected a party who's main goal was to get out of Iraq.

4. The new government is getting out of Iraq.

Outrage and coverups aside, it seems like the terrorists are getting exactly what they want; one less nation in Iraq. Now they have a good reason to believe civilian bombings can accomplish their goals. I think delaying the elections a week would have let cooler heads prevail and a dialogue open up rather than a reactionary election.

Can we at least agree that this sets a terrible precedent?

[Joe]

One could also argue that the former government's behaivour during the subsequent days (ignoring intelligence information pointing to Muslim radicals, and trying to place the blame on Eta only), and blantantly lying to the electrorate could also have been a mitigating circumstance in their defeat in the polls ... but please continue with your 'Spainish are weak' monologue.

Actually, the government acknowledged the possibility of the attack being another surprise visit from Allah the day of the attack

[Admiral Valdemar]

Here's facts:

1. The majority of the Spanish population opposed Iraq long before Madrid.

2. Before Madrid, the current government was expecting a comfortable margin of victory despite going to Iraq against the will of the people.

3. After the bombing, the people elected a party who's main goal was to get out of Iraq.

4. The new government is getting out of Iraq.

Outrage and coverups aside, it seems like the terrorists are getting exactly what they want; one less nation in Iraq. Now they have a good reason to believe civilian bombings can accomplish their goals. I think delaying the elections a week would have let cooler heads prevail and a dialogue open up rather than a reactionary election.

Can we at least agree that this sets a terrible precedent?

Put it this way, was al-Qaeda just going to give up and go home if they didn't get this reaction from such a bombing? If the answer is no, then it matters not. They are still a global threat and Spain will still hunt them, just Iraq, which really isn't related to al-Qaeda anymore here, won't be the issue anymore.

I see no problem if Spain wants to pull out of Bush's War on Terror(TM).

[BoredShirtless]

Here's facts:

1. The majority of the Spanish population opposed Iraq long before Madrid.

Right.

2. Before Madrid, the current government was expecting a comfortable margin of victory despite going to Iraq against the will of the people.

...well not comfortable, but you're right.

3. After the bombing, the people elected a party who's main goal was to get out of Iraq.

You could say that was the biggest difference between the two, not that it's their main goal.

4. The new government is getting out of Iraq.

Right.

Outrage and coverups aside, it seems like the terrorists are getting exactly what they want; one less nation in Iraq.

The people are getting exactly what they want too.

Now they have a good reason to believe civilian bombings can accomplish their goals.

They wouldn't terrorise if they thought they had zero chance of changing things.

I think delaying the elections a week would have let cooler heads prevail and a dialogue open up rather than a reactionary election.

Dialogue for what? Should the new government reverse its pre election promise?

Can we at least agree that this sets a terrible precedent?

No.

[Oddysseus]

Here's facts:

1. The majority of the Spanish population opposed Iraq long before Madrid.

2. Before Madrid, the current government was expecting a comfortable margin of victory despite going to Iraq against the will of the people.

3. After the bombing, the people elected a party who's main goal was to get out of Iraq.

4. The new government is getting out of Iraq.

Outrage and coverups aside, it seems like the terrorists are getting exactly what they want; one less nation in Iraq. Now they have a good reason to believe civilian bombings can accomplish their goals. I think delaying the elections a week would have let cooler heads prevail and a dialogue open up rather than a reactionary election.

Can we at least agree that this sets a terrible precedent?

Terrorism is bad. But the only point made here is that groups, like AQ, can hit in the heart of the EU. But this was already known, and now has been painfully restated. The Spanish people didn't vote out the PP becasuse of fear, but out of anger, at trying to use tragedy to get more votes, or prevent the loss of them, and for the fact that a lot people opposed this war and have paid dearly for it (and again, the gov't tried to turn this to their advantage). After another week of campaigning (either as candidates or through editorials) this would have brewed into a scandal most likely. We'll see if in the weeks to come the people have any buyer's remorse.

But, yeah, a chance to have a "dialogue open up" would have been nice. Wish we had this in the US. Yet, a dialogue in Spain should have been taken up long before now.

[Axis Kast]

The problem here is that while the Popular Party may have left a string of broken promises in its wake, and alienated 90% of the population in its support of the War in Iraq, Aznar's successor was still expected to win.

Newspapers here haven't stopped printing it: the vast majority of Spanish voters claim that the reason they went out to vote was to elect a new government that they believed would pull them out from Iraq, and so end the threat of terrorism.

Whether or not people inside Spain have a more nuanced appreciation, the al-Qaeda terrorists are still being presented with a success.

[RedImperator]

Al Quaeda put the Spanish in a hell of a fix. The people didn't want to be in Iraq in the first place and the Socialists promised to get Spain out. Days before the election, AQ kills hundreds of Spanish civilians, apparently to punish Spain for its involvement in Iraq. Now do you stick it out in Iraq even though you didn't want to be there and your involvement made you a target in the first place, just to spite Al Queada? Or do you pull out like you planned and make it look like Al Quaeda successfully manipulated your political process by killing 200 people? Because regardless of the domestic nuances in Spain, that's how the rest of the world is going to look at it.

[Master of Ossus]

I can't say that I understand everything there is about Spanish politics, but I do think that anyone who changed their vote as a result of the terrorist attacks is an idiot. Anyone who changed their vote as a result of the government's response to the attacks may have a point. The fact of the matter is, though, that the PSOE had better continue its country's former work against terrorism. Any Spaniard (and I suspect that there were lots of Spaniards) that voted for the PSOE simply because they believed that the bombings were backlash from their country's support of the war in Iraq should hang their heads in shame. Appeasement has historically never worked, and by attempting to shirk the true problem for the present, they have essentially just voted to make the problem even worse and more difficult to deal with in the future.

[TheDarkling]

Appeasement has never worked because when it does work it is called negotiation.
That isn't to say that I think the Spanish motivation is appeasement but anybody who voted in order to forward that agenda is a fool if on the other hand they voted to punish the government they have a legitimate case.

[The Albino Raven]

The argument of whether the attack was a success or not is totally moot. The attack happened, thus it was a success. Either people alter their lifestyles, as some are claiming the Spanish did, and the terrorists win in the traditional sense of the phrase, or people rally behind the government, and terrorism leaps into the press. No matter how you look at it , the terrorists have achieved their goal of causing terror.

[Master of Ossus]

Appeasement has never worked because when it does work it is called negotiation.

Appeasement is when one side agrees, with or without negotiation, to give into the other side's demands or point of view. Negotiation is almost always different in that it requires concessions from both sides, and pre-ordains that the terms of the treaties involved are held to and not ignored. If they are ignored, it BECOMES an appeasement policy to do nothing.

That isn't to say that I think the Spanish motivation is appeasement but anybody who voted in order to forward that agenda is a fool if on the other hand they voted to punish the government they have a legitimate case.

Precisely. If a voter went to the polls and said "Geez, if we didn't support the war in Iraq, no one would attack us. Therefore let's vote for the Socialists and get out or Iraq." That would be appeasement. If they said "My god, the PP sucks ass! Look at how they handled the bombings." That would be a reasonable view, and a reasonable manner in which to vote. However, I think that a significant fraction of the voters were thinking the first when they voted for the Socialists.

[GySgt. Hartman]

Precisely. If a voter went to the polls and said "Geez, if we didn't support the war in Iraq, no one would attack us. Therefore let's vote for the Socialists and get out or Iraq." That would be appeasement. If they said "My god, the PP sucks ass! Look at how they handled the bombings." That would be a reasonable view, and a reasonable manner in which to vote. However, I think that a significant fraction of the voters were thinking the first when they voted for the Socialists.

And you base your assessment on what?

[0.1]

The final message out of this to the world at large will be the following. Terrorism really does work. I'm not sure why that should be a surprise to anyone. In the history of world politics, there have been ample precedence where the tactics of terror has been used to control a population and influence policy. Consider for example the tactics the Mongols employed to obtain their empire, they would ride into a city, when its population fails to subjugate themselves to Mongol rule, everyone would be slaughtered. In some cases, a few were allowed to escape in order to spread the word of the coming terror. And you guessed it, most of the cities after those exampled submitted without opposition. And those cities that surrendered willingly were largely left untouched.

The concept that terrorism works this will be the view of anyone who looks at the election results and connect that to the events of March 11th. To terrorist organizations, it will be a matter of saying: "look at what one bombing did to Spain, let's do it elsewhere, we can influence policy with a few suicide bombers." Put whatever spin you want on it, but that's how it will be interpeted by terrorist organizations.

You could put the same spin on the Israelis, the second they give a serious concession, they'll face an endless spade of bombings in order to gain more concessions. The only difference is that the Israelis as a population has become somewhat resiliant against the effect of terror bombings. But eventually, they'll crack as well.

In effect, the result of the Spanish election has sent the worst possible message of all to terrorists everytwhere: Terrorism works, it's just a matter of time.

[Master of Ossus]

Precisely. If a voter went to the polls and said "Geez, if we didn't support the war in Iraq, no one would attack us. Therefore let's vote for the Socialists and get out or Iraq." That would be appeasement. If they said "My god, the PP sucks ass! Look at how they handled the bombings." That would be a reasonable view, and a reasonable manner in which to vote. However, I think that a significant fraction of the voters were thinking the first when they voted for the Socialists.

And you base your assessment on what?

On holding interviews with over 250 Spanish voters (almost exclusively from Madrid) over the past few days.