Europe, Lost

Tech Central Station ^ | March 16, 2003 | Jack Birnbaum

[quidnunc]

"Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war." – Winston Churchill after the Munich conference, 1938.

And so the Spanish have chosen; and so they will have. The lessons of history are too old, covered with cobwebs, stored somewhere in the attic of memory, belonging to generations whose time has passed. Now, again, it seems that all one has to do to ensure a bright, safe future is to hold up a sign saying "Paz", and peace it will be. Peace in our time. The dead of March 11 not yet cold in their graves, the burned and disfigured survivors still in hospital, and the blame has been assigned. Not to the ones who build the bombs and fly the planes into buildings to give themselves meaning in some internalized historical mythology; they are the mechanism, you see, not the root cause. The cause, the criminal, is to be found in those who resist too robustly, who go beyond holding up signs and passing resolutions and try to prevent the slaughter.

On September 12, 2001 they were all Americans, for a day, anyway. But then things began to get uncomfortable. America determined to not just honor our dead and rebuild (that would have been alright), but to take action to ensure that the horrors would not be repeated. The first wave of the left, the hard core, the ones without shame or a good feeling for public relations, even then, while the dust of the Twin Towers still swirled, worried about what America would do. They marched against the "Bombing of Afghanistan" as if it were to be some indiscriminate murder of innocents from above, instead of what it was, a professional campaign to eliminate the Al-Qaeda sanctuary and liberate a terrorized people from the religious fanatics of the Taliban. But their propaganda didn't really catch on, didn't penetrate the mainstream. The attacks on New York and Washington were too fresh. NATO supported the Afghan campaign, and the United Nations didn't object. They weren't all Americans anymore, but they still saw themselves as part of the same civilization, under attack by something alien, for reasons they didn't quite understand.

But the images fade and the old instincts work their way back into consciousness. The need to consider oneself different from the victims, to create a convincing reason it can't happen to me. And the sense of justice we all carry, that so easily mutates into a conviction that a victim must have somehow deserved his fate, if not from moral failing than at least from not taking proper precautions, from having made a wrong judgment, a bad alliance. An explanation is needed, and an amulet.

-snip-

[Samwise]

[I still care]

I think I am going to go to a peace rally and carry that sign "Peace in our time". It's like code to intelligent people. The liberals won't get it.

[elbucko]

The Spanish election of Sunday, March 14th.,2004, should be referred to as "Munich II".

[elbucko]

"Peace in our time".
It's like code to intelligent people.
The liberals won't get it.

And they never will.

[WestTexasWend]

'I think I am going to go to a peace rally and carry that sign "Peace in our time".'

Excellent. "Peace At Any Price" might work, too.

[Tacis]

Not really. The surprise is not that Spain abandoned us, the surprise is that they were ever with us in the first place. Spain is the most arrogant, old world nation in all of Europe. But, at least it was with us at a key junture.

You have to wonder what would have happened had not Franco been able to stop the old world communists. Spain would have been red when Hitler and the commies joined up to sack Poland and then back as red during the cold war. No NATO, etc. Who knows how it would have turned out.

No, it is to Spain's credit that they were with us then even if they are not, today. Things will get tougher, though, as the bad guys see that terror and bombing does work if applied strategically.

[forrestroche]

i am recycling this post i placed earlier today. it is relevant to this discussion (perhaps more so than to the one i originally posted to. has anyone actually read it? noone seems interested, but i gave it a lot of thought and i think it is an accurate account of what happened here in spain on sunday. it is not an apology, merely an explanation. and the bottom line is that it was a vote made of anger, not fear. the spanish (those that shifted their vote at the last moment based on the attack in madrid)voted AGAINST the PP, not FOR the socialists, feeling deceived. they reacted angrily, not considering what message they might be sending to al qaeda. i apologize to anyone that may have read this post already, but it is important that people have an accurate idea of what happened and why. hurling insults at the spanish at this moment serves no rational end (that i can discern). here's the post:


i live and work in spain and love this country. and yes, i love my country (the united states). i may live here, but i will ALWAYS be american. And i voted for Bush.

i too was disappointed by the vote on sunday, but i saw it coming on thursday (the day of the attacks). that said, it is important, before blasting spain, to put the election in the context of a few facts.

a. the spanish have been living with domestic terrorism for THIRTY years. they have yet to surrender to ETA (the basque nationalist terrorist group). i was forced to evacuate my residence in madrid on several occassions due to suspicious packages (at that time i lived in a building occupied by some high-profile figures). i have heard bombs go off and have seen the aftermath of attacks. people from the left and the right assume great personal and specific risk when they publicly attack ETA. but they do it. they are politicians, socialists, conservatives, journalists, police, talk show hosts, student activists, military personell, and bystanders. i have never heard anyone, ever, say, "maybe we should just give them independence and be done with it." they do not say this, in part, because the VAST majority of basques reject independence and support a unified and democratic spain.

b. the spanish people as a whole expressed genuine solidarity with the united states after 9/11. i was in the u.s. on 9/11 but returned here shortly after and everyone, i mean everyone, regardless of political affilition, went out of their way to express to me their support.

c. the spanish people as a whole supported the conservative government when it aligned itself with bush's effort to combat terrorism in afganistan.

d. the spanish were not, however, persuaded by the argument that Hussein was an imminent threat to global security or that there existed a nexus between iraq and al qaeda. ninety percent of them oppossed involvement in the war in iraq. agree, disagree, but spain is a democracy, that was the will of the people, and it was ignored. president Aznar, despite opposition even from within his own party, chose to support the war and place troops in iraq.

e. immediately prior to the attack last thursday a large segment of the public had forgiven the issue because the conservative government has delivered strong economic growth and an independent voice withing the european community.

f. hours after the attacks on thursday, the interior minister, Angel Acebes, declared that there was ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT that the attacked had been the work of ETA. there WAS an outstanding ETA threat against mass transit, but never had they used multiple bombs in coordinatd attacks (there were thirteen in all, at three locations, on four trains). ten detonated, in ten carriages.

g. i watched, live, as the situation unfolded. it went something like this: Acebes declares ETA the author of the attacks. it is leaked that a van containing detonators and a tape of koranic verses was found. Acebes declares ETA the author of the attacks. al qaeda claims responsibility in a letter delivered to a london newspaper. Acebes declares ETA the author of the attacks (but we are investigating all possibilities). ETA publicly disclaims authorship (which they have NEVER done before). Acebes declares ETA the author of the attacks.

h. in the following days the following things happened: al qaeda took responsibility a second time, five men were arrested (three of them morrocans believed to be members of an al qaeda affiliate responsible for the casa blanca bombings last summer), the international intelligence community, including the CIA, express the opinion that the bombings were the work of al qaeda. after all of these things happen, members of the conservative goverment push the UN security council to condemn the attacks and name ETA as the perpetrator. the spanish foriegn minister, Ana Palcacios, instructs spanish embassies (in a memo that has been leaked to the press) to state affirmatively that the investigation points to ETA.

i. i could go on, but you get the point. i cannot vote here, but i had always favored the PP (the partido popular, which in the conservative party in power). but neither could i deny what i was seeing. from the beginning, the mere number of bombs made it clear that it was unlikely that ETA was involved. could you say for sure? no. but neither could anyone who was not either inept, or trying to cover something up (at least until after the elections on sunday), claim that there was NO doubt that ETA had staged the attacks. it was clear to me, and to much of spain, that the government itself believed that it was al qaeda and was extremely afraid of the efect that could have on the elections.

so, on sunday, the predictable happened. a lot people, incorrectly but understandably, feel that the are unsafe BECAUSE of the goverments policies on iraq, which they NEVER agreed with, and to make things worse, that the goverment tried to conceal this infomation (in this i believe that they were correct).

i am not a psycic. i don't know what would have happened if Aznar had admitted from the beginning that this did not appear to be the work of ETA. i have no doubt that they would have paid a price. but from my limited perspective, the swing voters who decided this election (those who really hated Aznar and his policies were never going to vote for him anyway), were extemely angry at the deception after the attacks. the socialist politicians always call the conservative politicians liars (usually to divert attention from their own lies), but this time they did not (how they resisted until after the elections i don't know, i just figure they were worried about looking like opportunists at a really bad time). but the attempted manipulation was obvious to all who wished to look.

do i think the spanish should have changed their vote? no. but i do think that it was a very serious violation of democratic principles to attempt to conceal from the public information that they might believe relevant to their decision. and the spanish, having lived almost forty years under a dictator, are a little sensitive when they feel someone is trying to manipulate the process.

i agree with the comment i read here that the new goverment will soften up its position. it is a question of pragmatism. they have to appear committed to promises made easily in a campaign they did not expect to win. but the spanish, regardless of political stripe, in the long run will be loath to take a subordinate position to the french and germans. to the spanish they appear bossy and arrogant and are generally not well regarded. i would not, however, expect the kind of unquestioning support provided by Aznar.

smart remarks about al-andalus and an "axis of weasels" seem to me completely innapropriate considering what has just happened here. i know the spanish. they are a passionate and great people that on sunday felt upset and angry. they may have been wrong, but they were very definitely not afraid.

domestic politics here, as in any country, are vastly complex, and it seems unfair to make blanket generalizations based on very human reactions in an election event falling three days after a confusing and profoundly tragic event.

forrest roche

[narby]

be fair to spain

Why? What they did guarantee even more dead people, both there and here.

It is inexcusable.

[forrestroche]

did you even read my post?

[radioman]

the spanish, regardless of political stripe, in the long run will be loath to take a subordinate position to the french and germans.

It seems to me that is exactly what they did in the voting booth. Spain was finally on the road to prosperity. They let terrorists cower them into submission to the socialist surrender of freedom for safety.

They will suffer increasing attacks by terrorists, and will be the stepchild of the French and German Socialist Union.

[Dan(9698)]

...i am recycling this post i placed earlier today. it is relevant

When you refuse to use capitals where they are supposed to be, you may think it is cool.

Actually, nobody reads what you write because it is difficult to read and make sense of what you write.

[MamaLucci]

There IS no excuse. The majority of people in Spain chose to appease evil, even as they buried their dead. It is cowardly and shameful.

[Yardstick]

When you refuse to use capitals where they are supposed to be, you may think it is cool.

Actually, nobody reads what you write because it is difficult to read and make sense of what you write.

Youch! Let's hear it for tough love.

I agree, though. Nothing screams "teenager!" like lowercase i's. And a pass through the spellchecker or a close proofread can be a good thing, too -- especially when you're saying something you thing people need to hear.

[forrestroche]

I will place caps, didn't think of that. I don't do it to be "cool" but because it allows me to type faster.

Thanks

[ladyinred]

This is excellent! He has shown how propaganda from the left, and make no mistake, that is where this is coming from, has so poisoned the minds of people throughout the world that they now believe the lies they heard over and over are truth and have responded accordingly. The Socialists won in Spain, and if we are not on our toes they will do the same in this country. The power of the press should never be underestimated.

[forrestroche]

What i am saying is that the Spanish were not thinking in terms of surrender at the voting booth. There is a difference between effect and intent. Did they make a mistake? Yes. Will their vote encourage al Qaeda? Very likely. But did they vote out of fear? NO. Few who switched their vote were thinking "I surrender" or "I am afraid." They were angry at a party they believed had deceived them (and as I said in a previous post, I believe that they WERE deceived during the three days of investigation prior to the elections). I believe that most of the people posting on this site, had they been here during those days, having lived as I have lived with domestic terrorism for years, would have said, "yeah, al Qaeda seems the most obvious suspect." And yet what the government said, insisted on, and derided anyone for questioning, was that ETA (the basque terrorists) were CLEARLY the perpetrators of the attacks. However, it was not clear, quite the contary, and the result was a backlash. Being human, reacting emotionally, having had no time to reflect on larger consequences of their actions, did not make the Spanish cowards.

[ladyinred]

I have nothing but pity for the people of Spain, and have expressed that on this forum many times. I do not condemn them, as I said in my previous post, I think they are the victims of propaganda that is organized from the socialist left across the world. I do think they have made a terrible mistake, and I hope they don't live, or rather, die to regret it. We are dealing with two enemies, imo, the terrorists, and the socialists (read,Democrats in this nation).

Was Saddam involved in 911? I believe so, but regardless, he is a terrorist himself. This war on terror is not just against one group of terrorists, it is against all terrorists.

Thank you for your unique prospective on the situation in Spain. That is one of the best things about FR, we have people everywhere who can give us first hand reports, cutting through the media to the truth!

[optimistically_conservative]

Good post, thanks.

Seems to me, I remember a promiscuous booz hound getting elected in 92 because some people were angry about lip reading.