The comments discussion of my post about the elections on Spain continues to bubble. I wanted to draw your attention to two reports from Spain. The first is from the comments below, from Jose:
Yesterday we were shown on tv pictures of Bush mentioning cowardice in his response to a question about possible withdrawel of troops from Iraq. But we are not cowards. We did not vote against Aznar on Sunday because we are scared by Al qaeda. Spain has suffered terrorism for many years (ETA) and we believe in fighting terrorism. But we never supported the invasion of Iraq for the reasons (weapons of mass destructing) presented to us. |
And Luke Robinson, who was in Barcelona over the weekend, emailed me to point to his posting:
Aznar has not been the most popular man in Spain for quite some time, and, like Bush, questions have arisen surrounding his grasp of the facts (and the truth) regarding the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq. I could not say this more clearly: The Spanish were not voting in fear, but in defiance…. as of 5PM on the day of the bombings functionaries within the Spanish government had been told from on high to exploit every opportunity to blame ETA. Aznar himself called several newspapers (including Britain’s Observer) to personally press this line. This was too much for the Spanish to take… They were not voting to withdraw from the war on terrorism – not to be confused with the war on Iraq, which they will probably abandon – but to fight under new leadership that hopefully will do a better job of representing the people of Spain… |
The whole post is worth a read.
Also well-argued is Steven Johnson’s post on this subject.
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