The Madrid bombings were obviously followed by “grr terrorists we will defeat them oh yes we will” posturing from almost everyone. That was to be expected, and perfectly natural. I’ll admit to glazing over when Jack Straw came out shortly afterwards and began the war-on-terror rhetoric.
Far more interesting were the events two days later, when the Spanish people decided to chuck out the centre-right government (that had taken Spain to war in Iraq against the opposition of 90% of the population) and install the Socialists (who had pledged to withdraw Spanish troops if they were elected). The most interesting quote following this came from the Leader of the House of Representatives in the US, who said that the Spanish people had voted “to appease terrorism”. Bush et al were obviously not impressed by the choice of the Spanish people.
I think to say the Spaniards voted to “appease terrorism” is to distort the facts. The millions of people on the streets of Madrid were certainly not appeasing terrorism. They were out there in the pouring rain stating their views on terrorism very clearly. The main reason they kicked out José María Aznar was because they thought he had lied to them following the attacks.
Aznar and his allies (including Jack Straw, I might add) immediately sought to blame ETA for the attacks, because Aznar knew that his policies on ETA were strong. If the bombings had been ETA, Aznar’s party would probably have increased their majority in the Spanish parliament.
In the hours following the blasts, Popular Party officials were briefing the State media that the attacks were the work of ETA, despite having evidence to the contrary. They even proposed motions in the UN condemning ETA terrorism and persuaded the British government to support this line publicly (even though we probably knew that ETA had not carried out the bombings).
Unfortunately for Aznar, there was enough time between the bombings and the elections for the truth to start to seep out. Clues leaked to Reuters of possible Islamic links, and Aznar began to be undermined. When it became clear that Aznar had probably known of these links and had sought to influence the election by filling the media with reports of ETA’s involvement, the Spanish people were understandably pissed off. They kicked him out.
So who changed the election result? The terrorists? The Spanish government? The Socialists? It seems clear to me that by their deceit the government threw the election away. The Spanish people stopped trusting them (are you paying attention here, Tony?) and voted them out.
The Spanish people voted for truth and honesty in their democracy (a democracy which, let’s remember, is only 25 years old). That’s not appeasing terrorism. It’s exactly the kind of democracy that the US preaches, but rarely seems to practice. Perhaps Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should reflect on that.