Spain still a target
Gee, I guess bending over for these guys and giving them what they want doesn't work.
A Muslim militant schemed to punish Spain with the "biggest blow of its history" a half-ton suicide truck bombing of the National Court aimed at killing judges investigating Islamic terror, including the Madrid train attacks, said a police intelligence report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.
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The plot suggests Spain remains a target for Muslim militants even though the new Socialist government withdrew Spain's troops from Iraq after taking office in April.
France and Germany, please take note.
Comments
Appeasement of thugs and murderers never works.
Rather, it merely emboldens them as we see with this incident.
Posted by: mal | October 22, 2004 05:20 PM
There has been a terrorism problem in Spain that predates 9/11. Furthermore, 90% of the Spanish people had opposed the war going in and the Socialist Party had promised a pullout before Bin Laden's taped threat against the British, Itallians and Spaniards.
It was whether the war in Iraq was in the Spanish interest and was in fact an effective action in the war against terrorism that was the issue, not whether or not to stop fighting the war on terrorism.
In today's Washington Post it is reported that the CIA began moving resources from Afghanistan in March 2002, the same month Bush stopped being "concerned" about Bin Laden. ("You know, I just don't spend that much time on him." "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country.")
Now, I would not have voted for the Socialists following the Madrid attack, but who is it that turned away from the larger threat, who stopped pursuing Bin Laden so he could live to make the tapes calling for the attacks in Madrid and Istanbul? Also, who is it that ignored the fact that 90% of the Spanish people opposed the war, going ahead with that war even though inspectors were discovering that the necessity for which was proving to be untrue?
According to Andrew Sullivan, even the British who supported the war, are feeling "unconsulted, abused, and generally dissed" by your candidate. Sullivan cites the current furor over the redeployment of 900 troops as showing how there now is a growing, multi-party consensus, Tories and Labour alike, opposed to Bush's approach to terrorism.
So what is it going to be in a Bush second term? The initial focus of anger was the French and Germans.. then the pro-war conservatives grew betrayed by the Spanish. Are they soon to be angry at the British as well?
Posted by: PE | October 22, 2004 05:28 PM