billvon 2,435
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TomAiello 25
QuoteMy good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.
- Neville Chamberlain, 30 September, 1938
>I have to wonder if backing down doesn't send a message along the
> lines of "bully me and you can have my lunch money...oh, and can I
> do your homework for you, too?"
Well, except in this case the bully they are backing down from isn't the same one who stole their lunch money. Saddam Hussein is not Bin Laden, and the Iraqis are not Al Qaeda.
> lines of "bully me and you can have my lunch money...oh, and can I
> do your homework for you, too?"
Well, except in this case the bully they are backing down from isn't the same one who stole their lunch money. Saddam Hussein is not Bin Laden, and the Iraqis are not Al Qaeda.
I disagree. I think the statements AQ made about their reasons for the Spanish bombings highlights even more the connection between the war with Iraq and the war on Terror.
AQ is saying "get out of Iraq or we will bomb you again" and the Spanish people were frightened enough to elect someone who would bow to AQ.
Quotethink the statements AQ made about their reasons for the Spanish bombings highlights even more the connection between the war with Iraq and the war on Terror.
Definitely there's a connection. We invaded Iraq and terrorists attacked Spain. It's a direct cause and effect. But that doesn't provide any evidence that prior to our invasion of Iraq that there was an association with AQ.
billvon 2,435
>I disagree. I think the statements AQ made about their reasons for
> the Spanish bombings highlights even more the connection between
> the war with Iraq and the war on Terror.
I agree there, in a way. The US has turned Iraq into a terrorism vs "the coalition of the willing" (or whatever we're calling it nowadays) battlefield. I think you're right in that most Spaniards want no part of a war that (they think) the US essentially created in Iraq.
> the Spanish bombings highlights even more the connection between
> the war with Iraq and the war on Terror.
I agree there, in a way. The US has turned Iraq into a terrorism vs "the coalition of the willing" (or whatever we're calling it nowadays) battlefield. I think you're right in that most Spaniards want no part of a war that (they think) the US essentially created in Iraq.
QuoteQuotethink the statements AQ made about their reasons for the Spanish bombings highlights even more the connection between the war with Iraq and the war on Terror.
Definitely there's a connection. We invaded Iraq and terrorists attacked Spain. It's a direct cause and effect. But that doesn't provide any evidence that prior to our invasion of Iraq that there was an association with AQ.
I didn't say there was BEFORE the war. Learn to read and comprehend before inserting keyboard in mouth.
QuoteQuoteQuotethink the statements AQ made about their reasons for the Spanish bombings highlights even more the connection between the war with Iraq and the war on Terror.
Definitely there's a connection. We invaded Iraq and terrorists attacked Spain. It's a direct cause and effect. But that doesn't provide any evidence that prior to our invasion of Iraq that there was an association with AQ.
I didn't say there was BEFORE the war. Learn to read and comprehend before inserting keyboard in mouth.
I consider this a personal attack.
Amazon 7
The elections in Spain point up a very simple fact.. when the PEOPLE do not support the ill conceived BAD decisions of their government they very often CHANGE their government to people who WILL listen to them and their wishes. After the train bombings the Spanish government wanted desperately to blame it on ETA.. when the Spanish people found out they had been LIED to by their government.. they changed their government... Is there a lesson there to be learned??
Edited for atrocious spelling
Edited for atrocious spelling
gjhdiver 0
QuoteSpaniards are not Americans. Al Quaeda attacked Spain because it would be impossible for Spain to invade a host government and eradicate their martyrs and training facilities. And for all the crap they take, Interpol is not the CIA and FBI.
Spain will suffer more, and will turn back to the US, and we will quickly forgive the current jigoistic ramblings of the new President, and help. Like we always do.
Makes me proud.
Funny, I didn't see you take a knock inthe head this last weekend...
The Spanish populace was 90% against involvement in the Iraq debacle. They were ignored by their poodle of a leader and thusly made their displeasure felt at the ballot. I'm proud of them for restablishing a basic democratic principle. As a country that knows from it's imperialist past, the error of the current US policy, and has enough home grown terrorism to not make these descision lightly, I think they did the right thing.
I don't think they needed US help , before or after 9/11. All that's done is paint a bullseye on them.
It also looks like like Honduras and the Netherlands are going to bail too. That pretty much leaves the US and the UK. It's time to turn it over to the UN and leave.
billvon 2,435
> it's the Spanish electorate who show signs of having been coerced
> into voting the way the terrorists wanted them to.
There are also several reports of how the Spanish electorate wanted to vote out a government that had misled them about a terrorist attack and tried to supress protest.
------------------------
From the NYT:
Voters said they were enraged not only by the government's insistence that the Basque separatist group ETA was responsible, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, but they also resented its clumsy attempts to quell antigovernment sentiment.
For example, the main television channel TVE, which is state-owned, showed scant and selective scenes of antigovernment demonstrations on Saturday night, just as it ran very little coverage of the large demonstrations against the war in Iraq last year. It also suddenly changed its regular programming to air a documentary on the horrors of ETA.
That was the last straw for some Spaniards, who said it evoked the nightmare of censorship during the Franco dictatorship little more than a quarter of a century ago.
Prime Minister José María Aznar personally called the top editors of Spain's major dailies twice on the day of the attacks. In the first round of calls, Mr. Aznar said he was convinced that ETA was responsible.
"He said, `It was ETA, Antonio, don't doubt it in the least,' " said Antonio Franco, editor in chief of the Barcelona-based El Periódico de Catalunya, in an interview.
Mr. Franco's newspaper published a special edition based on Mr. Aznar's call, then Mr. Franco published an editorial rectifying the mistake as new information came to light. "It was shameful to me that the whole world was taking precautions and debating about Al Qaeda except in Spain, where the attack occurred," he said.
> into voting the way the terrorists wanted them to.
There are also several reports of how the Spanish electorate wanted to vote out a government that had misled them about a terrorist attack and tried to supress protest.
------------------------
From the NYT:
Voters said they were enraged not only by the government's insistence that the Basque separatist group ETA was responsible, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, but they also resented its clumsy attempts to quell antigovernment sentiment.
For example, the main television channel TVE, which is state-owned, showed scant and selective scenes of antigovernment demonstrations on Saturday night, just as it ran very little coverage of the large demonstrations against the war in Iraq last year. It also suddenly changed its regular programming to air a documentary on the horrors of ETA.
That was the last straw for some Spaniards, who said it evoked the nightmare of censorship during the Franco dictatorship little more than a quarter of a century ago.
Prime Minister José María Aznar personally called the top editors of Spain's major dailies twice on the day of the attacks. In the first round of calls, Mr. Aznar said he was convinced that ETA was responsible.
"He said, `It was ETA, Antonio, don't doubt it in the least,' " said Antonio Franco, editor in chief of the Barcelona-based El Periódico de Catalunya, in an interview.
Mr. Franco's newspaper published a special edition based on Mr. Aznar's call, then Mr. Franco published an editorial rectifying the mistake as new information came to light. "It was shameful to me that the whole world was taking precautions and debating about Al Qaeda except in Spain, where the attack occurred," he said.
billvon 2,435
>Now Iraq has become the focus of Jihad in the world. The jihadis see
> fighting there as a "moral" obligation. It's as good a place as any to
> kill them. Better than in a mall in Cleveland, OH.
Ah yes. The US-soldiers-as-bullet-sponges theory. Makes about as much sense as walking home through the crack-dealer neighborhood so you will be attacked there, and no one will attack your family at home several miles away.
> fighting there as a "moral" obligation. It's as good a place as any to
> kill them. Better than in a mall in Cleveland, OH.
Ah yes. The US-soldiers-as-bullet-sponges theory. Makes about as much sense as walking home through the crack-dealer neighborhood so you will be attacked there, and no one will attack your family at home several miles away.
Jimbo 0
QuoteThe US-soldiers-as-bullet-sponges theory.
The U.S. soldiers signed up for this kind of thing, people strolling through a mall in Cleveland didn't.
-
Jim
"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.
>and violence without actually fighting?
Same way you fight the war on drugs, I suppose. Keep in mind that most of the Al Qaeda higher-ups that have been caught/killed since 9/11 were stopped not by bombs or bullets, but through civilian authority arrests in countries who support our war on terror. Based on that, the answer is pretty clear - you fight terror by supporting other countries who use their police and intelligence forces to stop terror.
We simply don't have enough military to kill or arrest everyone in the world who might, some day, want to harm the US. We do have a pretty good track record on getting other countries to cooperate with us in the war on terror; indeed, it's led to our biggest successes. The ideal is a world in which terror groups are simply not tolerated, where local governments make the effort to stop groups like Al Qaeda before they can really get started. Our nightmare is a world where everyone turns a blind eye to terror, relying on the US to send troops and ferret it out so they don't have to, and so they will not be attacked by _either_ country/group.
>Also, Zapatero wants to create a stronger alliance with Morocco
> despite the fact that three of the the five men arrested in relation to
> the bombing are Moroccan.
?? I don't get your point. Most of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi; yet we still have a strong relationship with them. Were we wrong for doing that?
>I have to wonder if backing down doesn't send a message along the
> lines of "bully me and you can have my lunch money...oh, and can I
> do your homework for you, too?"
Well, except in this case the bully they are backing down from isn't the same one who stole their lunch money. Saddam Hussein is not Bin Laden, and the Iraqis are not Al Qaeda.
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