let us ALL applaude the Spanish

[dudeness]

Spains new government vowed to "never again turn its back' on the United nations. The Spanish government acceding to the will of its people will commence withdrawal of troops almost immediately..PM Zapatero was quoted saying "this does not mean Spain renounces its commitment to provide stability and democratise Iraq".." To the contary , we will be partners , allies and firm defenders", "working with other UN members to achieve the dream which iraqis themselves have to build a free and democratic iraq".

US President GW Bush "expressed his regret"

bumma george..

[wtmusic]

1. Viva L'Espagna!

Why does every one else in the world sound so rational?

[Justitia]

2. Way to go Spain

W's only "regret" is that their new gov't sees thru his bullshit like glass.

I've been liking lots of things their new PM has been saying.

It's about damn time some world leaders were saying this stuff loud and proud.

'Course Howard Dean :loveya: is my hero, so it figures.

[dfong63]

3. hurray!

[izzie]

4. The important thing is this is 'will of the people'

Our people seem to want war. Now that is a problem.

[KurtNilsen]

5. The Spanish withdrawal is very regrattable, and makes the

situation in Iraq more dangerous. The insurgents will now be spurred on to attack more coalition nations, and create more mayhem.

Bad move Zappatero. Some leaders like to hit the ground running.


You chose to hit the ground running away.

[Capt_Nemo]

6. Wrong, Kurt. Zapatero is taking his country out of a criminal enterprise

Anyone that supports the occupation of Iraq is in my eyes an apologist
of aggression and war crimes.

Zapatero is doing the right thing regardless of what the bushies, or supposedly the "terrorists" might think.

Guess what? he doesn't care what you think too!

[KurtNilsen]

7. What do you think of John Kerry's war policy then? He called

Zappatero urging him not to withdraw.


You wrote, "Guess what? he doesn't care what you think too!"

I know. It sucks :hi:

[Capt_Nemo]

8. Kerry is a kinder, gentler imperialist but an imperialist nonetheless

just like Clinton before him and the vast majority of the american
political establishment and I have always made perfectly clear
in this forum my stand against those policies.

Anyway the Democrats are not incompetent imperialists like their
Republican counterparts, and that is why they can be considered
the lesser of 2 evils...

[KurtNilsen]

9. You know: I read an editorial in our main Broadsheet newspaper

in Norway this morning. It is our "Ny Times", and is conservative.

But, they hate Bush, and in their editorial they lamented the fact that Kerry's policies would probably not differ that much from Bush, but that the sounds coming out of Washington would be more cilvilised.

Exactly the same point you made.

The Norwegian people really liked Clinton btw, except for the hard core anarchists/socialists who basically share the view of John Pilger and thinks that the US is virtually evil incarnate.

Thankfully, they are not a big crowd.

[Classical_Liberal]

11. Glad EU leaders realize Kerry is giving them more tact

but no substance. The fact that he has promised better relations with foreign leaders is the only leverage we have on him. The foreign leaders are the ones with the leverage on his right wing tilt.

[Capt_Nemo]

15. Unfortunately I think that what many EU leaders want (but not Zapatero)

is a brand of US imperialism they can be comfortable with, like it
was in the "good old" Clinton days. That is the position of Chirac
and Schroder.

Their opposition to the PNAC agenda leaves them no choice but to
reluctantly side with Vladimir Putin, when they very much wish they
could be siding with an "enlightened" US leadership.

That is also the reason why I suspect Putin is secretly rooting for
a Bush win. The presence of the neo-cons in the White House boosts
the Kremlin's soft power to levels not seen after the crumbling of
the USSR. Same thing happens between Russia and China, with the
chinese having to rely more on the russians to face the neo-con
threat.

As to Zapatero, I may be wrong, but I belive he sees the world much as
I do. This means he thinks PNAC is a vastly more dangerous threat
to the european way of life than Al Qaeda will ever be. The zealotry
is the same but PNACs firepower is hugely superior.

He can not publicly say so, but he is not taking out the troops from
Iraq because he "fears the terrorists". He takes the troops out to
confront the neo-cons by undermining their side in the war. That is
why he took his decision with an "unexpected rush": to increase the
political impact of the withdrawal.

Zapatero has faced up to the truth: the current US strategic doctrine
is the biggest threat to Europe since the Cold War ended. Now he acts
to counter it. I'm with him all the way!

[Capt_Nemo]

16. If was not for John Pilger and people like him maybe there were

no Maubere people (East Timorse) today. Count me in his camp.

And I didn't realy like Clinton. ;-)

[Classical_Liberal]

10. Kerry's foreign policy leaves much to be desired.

. He didn't personally see a problem with giving Bush credibility himself. That is why he voted for IWR.

I also think it is better to get the the UN in, and I feel safer now that Zapatero is putting pressure on us to do that. He looks like the most responsible leader in the world right now.

[KurtNilsen]

12. hmm.. I didn't see the text of your post before I hit reply.

I see that we differ greatly. That's ok.

What do you think the US should have done after 911?

Stop supporting Israel? No Afghan war? Role of UN? etc. etc.

[Classical_Liberal]

13. We should have gone to war in Afghanistan

That is where Al Qaeda actually was. and we should have kept it up until we got Osama, instead of going to war with Iraq. If anything we should have placed more pressure on Pakistan.

We should have stopped supporting the Israeli settlements, yes, since they are the main root cause of muslim outrage at America.

[KurtNilsen]

14. I am with Friedman on the Israel queston (and Kerry I believe)

in that Israel has every right to build it.

BUT, BUILD THE DARNED THING ON THE GREEN LINE.

The U.S. should have put HEAVY pressure on Israel to do this. Not primarily because the arab world is mad. They are mad about a lot of things. But, because it is the only right thing to do.

Anyways, to get back on topic: Even though I dislike Zappatero's decision, I would like it very much that he transfered the soldiers to Afghanistan instead. That would make his point that the Iraq war was wrong, and that Al Qaeda is the real enemy.

Thanks for answering constructively btw. It is much appreciated. :hi:

Cheers.

[Capt_Nemo]

18. There I'm in agreement with you

"BUILD THE DARNED THING ON THE GREEN LINE"

Absolutely right!

[July]

32. Zapatero has already said he will send more troops to Afghanistan.

They only have about 150 there, if I remember correctly, and he plans to send 100 more. He has also said Spain will help Iraq rebuild, but he will work with the U.N. and will represent the Spanish people's wishes. Spain has already arrested several suspects in the March 11 bombing, and Zapatero's first state visit will be to Morocco, the native land of many of those suspects.

[Vladimir]

27. Its wrong, of course

and besides, whatever his policy, he had to urge Zapatero to stay in. Anything else is political suicide - its very dangerous to judge a candidate by his policy statements during the election year, as Bush demonstrably proved. Kerry, if elected, may well govern to the left of his preclaimed policies.

V

[KurtNilsen]

40. That will be interesting to watch. I will concede that ONE good

thing with Zappatero's decision is that he is doing what he said he was going to during the campaign.

That seems like a rare thing these days.

[0rganism]

21. So you think Zapatero should have backtracked on a major platform plank?

Zapatero was running for election on removing troops from Iraq.

Now that he's elected, he's following through on his campaign promise. As expected. As the people who voted for his party wished.

Good for him. Wish we had more politicians like him in the USA.

[KurtNilsen]

37. I wish at least that he waited til june when the mandate expired as

Zappatero first said.

Even then if I remember correctly he said that the troops could stay even longer if it was under UN control.

Here's a solution for you Zappatero. I think the UN wants a special force to provide security for the UN upon its return to Iraq. There's your UN mission, Zappatero.

I think I like saying Zappatero.

Cool name :-)

[0rganism]

38. Zapatero is a cool name -- sounds like Frank Zappa

Frank Zapatero and the Socialists of Invention!

[KurtNilsen]

39. LOL

[0rganism]

22. duplicate - deleted

zorch

[Vladimir]

25. No they won't

The Spanish aren't leaving because of the attacks, they are leaving because they never wanted to be there in the first place and now have a leader who will listen to his people. The insturgents understand this perfectly well.

V

[leesa]

35. They are right to withdraw. The war is immoral and illegal

and the Iraqis don't need the US or any of the rest of the "coalition causing more death and mayhem in their country. EVERYONE needs to go and Spain is doing the courageous thing.

[0007]

17. Hooray!

[NuttyFluffers]

19. yay! the reign in spain falls mainly on the plain...

plain thinking that is. smart people, hooray!

[Alpha Wolf]

20. Maybe too soon for applause

I haven't decided yet how I feel about Zapatero's withdraw (still trying to gather as much information as a can-- not just what the talking heads will report). An even more important issue, IMHO, is that whether or not we agree with Zapatero's views/policies, it is a fact that the Madrid bombings directly affected Spain's election. Even though like the results of that election it is a dangerous precedent that terrorist groups will likely continue to follow in other nations.

Is anyone else concerned about this?

[Kellanved]

23. That is a very strange viewpoint

Zapatero has promised a withdrawal of Spanish troops since prior to the war - he did not pick up a populist position after the attacks like the US media seems to believe. Unlike Aznar, who tried to spin it as much as possible.
It is also missed that the final results were pretty close to the last poll prior to the terroristic attacks - in the poll's margin of error.
What has leaked from the investigation shows that the terrorists had not even paid attention to the upcoming elections; they did bomb because they could; the date was chosen because of the 9/11 link (911 days, 3/11).


But the media has declared the election result a "victory for terrorism", so from now on elections might become targets. This is not Zapatero's fault, nor the Spanish democracy's.

[Alpha Wolf]

26. This is interesting...

to see if terrorists are emboldened by the media portrayal of this. Thanks for the comment.

[July]

34. Thank you. This is what I have heard from Spaniards.

Zapatero made his promise about withdrawal of the troops OVER A YEAR AGO.

Aznar is selling the line that works best for him, but it's not the truth. As Kellanved points out, the last poll before the election showed the race becoming close. No polls are permitted in the last week before the election, so no-one knows how close it was the day of the election, but it was very far from a slam-dunk for Aznar's party.

According to all the Spaniards I've talked to, it was Aznar's manipulation of information about the bombings, and not so much the bombings themselves, that turned more people out and turned them toward Zapatero's party. Aznar's group kept trying to paint the bombings as ETA terrorism, because they have been tough on the Basques, and withheld information indicating that they were probably caused by an Islamic fundamentalist group (even though they had this information early on). This information came out, anyway, but Aznar's group didn't fess up till Saturday night, a few hours before the election.

It is a joke to say that Spaniards are cowards or allow a victory for terrorism. They have dealt with this issue for a long time, and they are actively dealing with the March bombings.

Aznar signed on with Bush against the wishes of 90% of Spaniards. Zapatero is keeping a promise and looking out for Spaniards, not us -- which is his job, even if it creates problems for us. Our war created problems for them, as well (and let's not forget that some of them died in our war).

[0rganism]

24. The reaction of the Spanish was unique

If you can name a single other instance of a terrorist attack modifying national policy towards pacificism, by all means post about it.

The vast majority of terrorist attacks have only served to create a more hardline stance among the victims. The result in Spain, if we are to believe that it was a direct result, was far from what the bombers could reasonably have expected.

On the other hand, the actions of Aznar's regime in trying to pin the blame on Basque separatists may have done quite a bit to discredit them with Spanish voters.

[ShaneGR]

28. I don't like the timing of this

Al-Qaeda bombs your country, you put tail between legs and run. They should have waited until June.

[0rganism]

31. Zapatero doubled the Afghanistan contingent, how is that running?

He's putting more troops where they can fight Al Qaeda directly, while removing troops from Iraq as per his party's campaign platform. Don't like it? Tough shit.

[Kellanved]

33. I can understand that viewpoint

However that was not possible. Zapatero needed to form a Government, without the promise of swift action he might not have gotten the votes needed in Parliament.

[BeFree]

29. It's like * always says

"A Free People are a Peace Loving People."

Spain has proven that humans can rise above our bloody history and choose Peace instead of repeating wars. There is hope for us.

PS. Never knew i had a weebit of Spanish blood in me veins.

[truthspeaker]

30. APPLAUSE

Note to Tony Blair: this is how a REAL Labor party acts.

Note to John Kerry: Get a clue.

[Liberal-4-Life]

36. Way to go Spain!

Spain is doing what the US refuses to do.... they have put the saftey of their own people above International Policy and they should be praised for doing so.

Now if only Bush will learn.....

[freeforall]

41. Zapatero Rocks!

Imagine that! A politician who keeps his word, and pays attention to the will of the people.

What a concept!

America should be so lucky.

[eleny]

42. applause!