Conason - Alienated Spain Rejects Bush’s War

[StlMo]

Alienated Spain Rejects Bush’s War


...

There may well have been voters in Spain who foolishly cast their ballots for the Socialist Workers Party in the hope that withdrawal from Iraq would protect them from future attacks. The next attack, in France or Germany perhaps, may disabuse them of that illusion. Many more rejected the right-wing Popular Party because they believed that its leaders were lying to them about the Madrid attacks—and had lied about Iraq to justify the government’s profoundly unpopular support of that war.

Their resounding rebuke of George W. Bush is the price of deception.

When the Islamist fanatics first struck on American soil in September 2001, the Spaniards and all Europeans stood with us in complete solidarity. In utter sincerity, they declared: "We are all Americans now." Those emotional expressions were given weight by their own experience with terrorist attacks by both indigenous and foreign killers. The Spanish authorities in particular had spent many years fighting the violent separatists of E.T.A., with the full support of the citizenry. The Spanish people have shown no inclination to appease Basque terror, despite the more than 800 deaths attributed to E.T.A. attacks; they have answered every E.T.A. outrage with massive demonstrations, not unlike those that took place last week across Spain.

After the perpetrators of Sept. 11 were traced to extremist networks in Spain, again the Spanish people betrayed no reluctance to assist in prosecuting the guilty parties. Their intelligence services and legal authorities have been as aggressive as any in the world, cooperating with foreign governments and raiding suspected Islamist cells. The man most admired in Spain by far happens to be Baltazar Garzon, the judge celebrated for his courageous scourging of E.T.A. and Al Qaeda (and Augusto Pinochet and Henry Kissinger, but that’s a different story).

In short, the Popular Party’s hard line against E.T.A.—and Al Qaeda—was no political liability in Spain. To claim otherwise is yet another lie.

Nor have the people of Spain avoided sacrifice in the real war against terrorism. When the United States declared hostilities against the Taliban, announcing its determination to extirpate our assailants in Afghanistan, the Spaniards did more than merely voice their support. Along with the French, the Germans, the Russians and a broad coalition of allies from around the world, they made that just cause their own. Soldiers from many of those nations still serve in Afghanistan and the surrounding region, a terribly dangerous place made more so by our distracted government’s failure to focus on reconstruction and security.

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http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/conason.asp

[Miss Authoritiva]

1. The Idiot's Guide to World Affairs

Conanson astutely observes that "the wisest response for civilization’s defenders is to examine the events and policies that led us here" -- that is, to a world of terror, to avoid convenient oversimplification of complex issues, and to stop the "ritual denunciation" of those who see things differently.

But this is not going to happen with the Bush Administration -- and on this point, they did not lie. We were always told upfront that things with Bush were black or white, good or evil, you're either with me or against me. Dubya don't "do nuance."

And at this point, we all know what the best option is. It's going to be far easier to change presidents than to change the president.

[StlMo]

2. Permanent URL

http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=8771

[Manix]

3. ..when you have a clown in the White House who doesn't read, it's

very difficult to every hope for any thoughtful analysis to current events.