Terrorists Dictate Spanish Foreign Policy

Spanish popular opinion was overwhelmingly against getting Spain involved in an invasion of Iraq from the beginning, so I don't find it particularly surprising that the Socialists won. If American public opinion had been ovewhelmingly against invasion as it was in Spain, we wouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place.

There remains a good argument that invading Iraq opened up greater opportunities for terrorism.

With respect to Jacob Levy's comments, I think a more pertinent response is that it doesn't matter whether the Spanish voters were motivated by the terror attack or not. What matters is whether the *terrorists* perceive the Spanish voters as having been so motivated. Because if they do, then they will see themselves as having won a victory, and they will attempt to repeat their strategy against the United States and its other allies.

I think the odds of an "October surprise" went up significantly over the weekend.

JT: True about Spanish opinion on the battle of Iraq, but before the bombings Anzar's party was widely expected to win easy re-election. I agree that invading Iraq made more opportunities for politically-effective terrorism, but that's because any offensive strategy would make terrorists want to attack us more.

KH: True, a lot does depend on perception. I share your concern about a terrorist attack later this year in America, although I've long had plans to lay low before the election.

It disturbs me that educated people would refer to a group people who hold a different opinion other than their own as ?spineless? and ?cowards.? I was one of the few liberals who supported the war in Iraq because I believed ending a brutal dictatorship and sponsoring democracy was the direction human society as a whole should head toward (i.e. the ?right? path), despite the inevitable hiccups that would occur along the way.

But I can certainly understand why some people would be against the war. The reasons are numerous ? US?s recent history (post-Korea) of sponsoring brutal regimes, the influence of corporations on our government and the possibility that this really might be about oil wealth, the general suffering that accompanies war, the mass ignorance of a population unfamiliar with democracy electing poor leaders, would the Iraq population appreciate a democracy they didn?t win themselves, etc? These things alone are enough to give one pause and make one wonder if we have too much faith in our politicians and government to do the ?right? thing.

And even on a philosophical level, the fact that we are imposing our belief system, our notions of right and wrong, on a society that is very different from ours and asking their innocent civilians, not ours, to die for our cause demands that we should proceed with caution. God help us that our cause is just. I was willing to take to take that chance, but I certainly don?t think other people are cowards for not feeling the same.

The elections in Spain will be perceived as a victory for the terrorists by the terrorists, but it is not unreasonable that a terrorist event before the elections would drive the population away from a war they never supported to begin with. They are not cowards for saying they want no part of this.

JCali: It disturbs me that some people actually are spineless cowards. Some of your fears with regard to the WoT and fighting in Iraq are quite legitimate, and the war has certainly had a high cost in lives and treasure.

The reason I call the Spanish voters cowards is that the cost of losing the War should be incredibly clear, but despite that they're afraid to fight. They've been knocked out with a single blow. I'm sure it's easy for them to justify their surrender, even the hawks, because they know that the US is going to carry the torch and continue sacrificing our kids to save Spanish, French, and German lives (among others).

Some of their fears are reasonable, but that doesn't mitigate their cowardice. Do you think I'm not afraid of an attack here? Or of a bumpy road in Iraq? Or of untrustworthy politicians? I am! But the risk it worth it, and it's a risk I'm willing to take. I hope the rest of America feels the same way, because otherwise we will lose.

Al-Qaeda picked its target very carefully.

hmmm, this is an interesting conversation. You say the Spanish are cowards because they are "afraid to fight." I think this is where we disagree. I haven't gotten a sense from the Spanish media, or Liberals I know, or anyone else opposed to the WoT or Iraq war that they are "afraid to fight." They simply never believed in the cause or justification, and have said that unless some things change (like the UN is put in charge), we can not support the war politically, financially, or with man-power. Why should they die for a cause they don't believe in?

Also, I would like you to expand on this notion that we are "defending" Europe (French, German, Spanish lives). That seems arrogant. Would they be dieing if we weren't in Iraq? I suspect that if they felt they were truely under threat from the Middle East, or whatever, they would have no problem defending themselves or supporting the US. We don't know what a US success or failure in Iraq will mean for European security in the long run, and terrorism in general is something they have a long history of dealing with.

Michael,

If you are so certain Iraq was the right war to fight, why didn't you sign up, yourself?

Fighting terrorism by invading a sovereign, third world country with no firm ties to terrorism?

Jeez, this strategy is one that even a country full of spineless cowards could see as faulty. If only Aznar had listened to the words of his fellow countrymen rather than the club-weilding Neanderthals currently inhabiting the White House...

sigh, we were having a reasoned conversation. Can we please stop with the intellectual bashing and name calling?

JCali: So then, the crux of the disagreement is my assertion that "the cost of losing the War should be incredibly clear"? Perhaps it isn't clear, or there's no agreement we're at war at all? In either of those cases I suppose it wouldn't be cowardly to oust Anzar; the population is just lining itself up with its allies (the terrorists?).

That we are at war seems obvious to me. OBL and AQ have said so numerous times, and have vowed to reclaim at least the portions of Spain that were once part of the "Caliphate". Isn't this bombing an act of war? Even if I strongly disagreed with my country's foreign policy I would never approve of terrorist attacks on America.

JT: You have no idea what my involvement in the WoT may or may not be.

Rick: We've been at war with Iraq since 1991. It's been US policy to topple Saddam since the mid-1990s. Were we supposed to continue no-fly zones and risk American pilots forever? Or pull out and let Saddam genocide all the Kurds and Shias in the north and south? The 1991 war never ended, and Saddam continually violated his cease-fire agreements.

One thing is absolutely for certain. At least to me. Deception is begining to reign. Delusional thinking is carrying people away into foolishness. People seem to have lost most all sense of right and wrong.

It makes me wonder how close we are until Jesus Christ returns.

I mean common sense seems to have flown out the window.

Few seem to know, much less care, what is the right thing to do anymore. Our values change as readily as the seasons. One man sounds right until another comes along and seems to make more sense.

Everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

Carlos

Rick - There has been a gentleman's agreement since 1648 regarding sovereignty. Terrorism violates those rules which is why you have Blair explicitly saying that the Peace of Westphalia (1648) is dead. You have George W. Bush declaring that the US is engaged in a war with a non-sovereign group and nobody from the other side even bothers to ask whether he meant it because our news media is so degraded they don't understand how huge a thing this is and the diplomatic corps has its collective head up its bum so far they can't even imagine that the US is serious.

For third world nations who harbor terrorists, sovereignty is dead. Both the UK and the US have explicitly made it policy to ignore the concept.

"So then, the crux of the disagreement is my assertion that "the cost of losing the War should be incredibly clear"?"

Mike, if you are talking about the overall WoT, then I don't think it is something that can be won or lost. Yes, We are certainly at "war" with AQ and similar organizations, but to be frank the WoT is a silly name and terrorism is something societies will always be fighting in its various incarnations until the end of time. It is anyone's best geuss on how to deal with a borderless organisation (i.e. terrorism) like AQ, as it is a highly circumstancial phenomena.

Being against the war in Iraq does not mean you support AQ. If anything, the Iraq conflict made AQ stronger. Are people who supported the war then allies of AQ?

The WoT and the war on Iraq initially weren't the same thing. I will agree that AQ is probably involved in shaping post-war Iraq and Spain's withdrawl will be perceived as an AQ victory. But these people are not cowards for not wanting to be any part of Iraq and withdrawling their forces from a place the majority did not want there to begin with. A strong reason against going to war was that it would increase the influence of AQ. They are only vocalizing their opposition to the Iraq war, not the war on terror (which they MUST fight). I might agree that they were cowards if they were pro-Iraq conflict from the beginning and then pulled out. They can't be faulted for thinking we stirred the hornets nest when their politicians did not follow the will of the majority to begin with.

No, the cost of establishing or failing to establish a democracy in Iraq is not incredibly clear, but the cost of winning the war in Iraq was made clear in Spain a few days ago. Europe certainly doesn't appear to be safer with America "defending" it.

If anything, the Iraq conflict made AQ stronger.

I'm not sure this is true. Is AQ stronger now than it was sep 10, 2001? I don't think so.

Regarding whether anyone's safer now. It's a very hard thing to argue, because it's hard to argue a negative. What would have happened if America hadn't stood up for itself after 9-11? We can't say, because it didn't happen. Even pointing to the fact that there have been no successful terrorist attacks on US soil since then won't convince. It's just impossible to know what would have happened otherwise (although most people on Sep 12, 2001 would have not believed we'd make it this far without another major attack). I pray the terrorists are unable to attack anyone else - but I fear that they've been heartened by what happened in Spain. Civilization must stand up to them.

After 9-11, when it came time to decide who to support, I had to shuck off all those arguments about the cause/effect loop of fighting terrorism. For me it came down to trying to do the right thing. Does a country stand by and allow itself to be attacked or not? I say no.

I don't know whether the voters in Spain are cowards or not. We mourn with them. But I would have been more heartened by a response from them stating that terrorism will not stand and that they were going to engage even more fully in the WoT (which, unlike many naysayers, I think we are winning).

Bill: I've got to agree. Regardless of any other effect of the fighting in Iraq, all the reports indicate that we've killed hundreds and even thousands of AQ's fighters in the honey pot we built there. The Iraqis are all happier, according to polls, and it's only a matter of time before their approval of American action is known throughout the Arab world. It's happening already, despite the despotic regimes that run just about all the Arab press.

I believe the Spanish have acted like cowards in this matter. It is not as complicated as some imply. AQ and OBL have declared war on the ‘Western Imperialists’ as they see us. OBL has called on all of Islam to rise together and kill Americans and her allies. With this being fact we are now at war with AQ, whether we like it or not. We therefore have no choice but to face our enemies full on and do whatever is necessary to defeat them. Britain and Spain had very similar opinion polls regarding the invasion of Iraq, in as much that a sizable percentage did not agree with it. However, one thing I can say about Britain, is that if we are at the receiving end of a terrorist attack (it is now accepted we will be) between now and our general election this year, we will NOT vote in the liberals. That I can say with absolutely certainty. Why will a terrorist attack not dissuade us? Because we understand that we have no choice but to face our enemies full on and do whatever is necessary to defeat them. Ignoring them in the hope they will go away is NOT an option. The sad thing is that Spain also understands this, yet they have chosen to appease the terrorists in the hope they will go away. It is as simple as that. The war is on, whether we like it or not, no amount of burying our heads in the sand will make it go away. By voting in the socialist party in Spain, they hoped their involvement with America and her allies would be curtailed and as a result the terrorists will leave them alone. This is an act of cowardice. The British people have just as many reservations as the Spanish, and being America’s major ally is a chief target for the terrorists. But there is no talk here of voting in the liberals to avert this. The only way to avert this is to defeat the terrorists, not appease them. As Winston Churchill said “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”.

Let's not oversimplify the facts.
After a little research and a few (costly) phone calls to people posted in Spain, I found out.

1.- The socialists had been promising to pull the troops out of Iraq since the get go (They shouldn't but that's the fact)

2.-They have had ETA terrorism for thirty years and have not given in an inch. Under any government. The problem is that they seem to see no relationship between AQ and Iraq.

3.- Who said the incumbents were going to win anyway? Not all the polls predicted a victory for the conservatives. The conservatives lost just a few votes. After the bombings the campaign was stopped. The leaders of all the parties just gave a message. "Show the terrorists we are not afraid, next sunday just go and vote" High turnout is usually good for the left in Spain. And the government mishandled the crisis trying to pin the bombings on ETA. Spanish people hate spin and that cost the conservatives those seven hundred thousand votes. Just that, out of more than twenty million ballots.

And there will be no appeasement. The first thing the next president promised is to stand firm against terrorism.

They have already caught the bastards without bombing any countries.

JM: I think your estimation of the facts is right, but I still think it reflects appeasement and cowardice, at least among the swing voters. Even if the socialists would have won anyway, all the reports I've seen indicate that the number of parlimentary seats swung even more because of the attacks.

Anyway, the "no appeasement but will stand against terrorism" is just fluff, IMHO.

Thanks for your remarks, Mike. I got an email from a young Spanish lieutenant that seems to follow your line of thought. It was quite funny, he said "all those 20 year old vegetarian, pacifist, bullfight hating cretins went to vote to punish the Popular Party for standing next to the "Great Satan". I applied for transfer to Iraq, anyway"
On the other hand, the Spaniards aren't withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan, the socialists are talking of sending more. Let's see what they do. I know it doesn't make sense from our point of view, but there is UN coverage there and that seems to matter a lot over there.

As I said, let's see what they do.

JM: What they do is important, but what they say is important too because it can encourage terrorism.