In Spain they took a different pledge

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

The pledge the Spaniards took was to get rid of their war mongering leaders and get out of Iraq. They did not fall for the kool-aid Basque separatists party line. They knew better.

Want to be safe? Get rid of the people who will compromise your safety for political gain and rising defense stocks.

[LaurenG]

1. Well lets follow their lead

what will it take to convince the other half?

[Mr.Green93]

4. It will take a leader to step forward

and call for Peace Talks.

[FreedomAngel82]

21. But don't you know

peace talks are sooo 90's. Now we're big and tough and use the powerful military.

[MuseRider]

2. Considering the phone calls to my house

this morning in response to my husbands LTTE it is going to be VERY difficult to do that from my state.

God I wish he would get home so I did not have to answer them.

You are of course right. Doing all we can here but boy are we in the minority here in Kansas right now. It has gotten worse since the last "election".

[Lars39]

5. Can you get an answering machine?

Might help with evidence if somone goes completely bonkers on you.

[MuseRider]

13. I thought about that

but so far nobody has threatened him. Mostly old coots who will not call back but feel free to take it out on me. Funny, I don't think they expect a "mere woman" to be able to hold her own or even to have worried her "pretty little head" about these big, manly issues (yes, those kinds of guys). They seem a bit stunned when I get done with them so they just leave with something like, "well now it seems you are both stupid." LOL

Still, I am annoyed but I do think I should answer them. Gotta counter the bullshit.

[Lars39]

25. lol

Keep shredding 'em MR!
At the least it'll make them think twice over calling someone's home about a LTTE.

[getmeouttahere]

8. Don't answer the phone...

and keep the faith!

[MuseRider]

14. See response

#13.

I HAVE to answer the phone.

[geek tragedy]

3. The Spanish turned on Aznar because he lied, not because they

wanted to appease terrorists.

[manic expression]

6. They never "appeased" anything, besides their own determination

Don't buy the RW lies that democracy equals "appeasement". Entering the Occupation on Iraq was appeasement to Bush, and leaving it is the act of taking control of one's country. Voting for people who are really going to help Spain is not terrorist appeasement, it is the opposite.

(Not directed at you)

[geek tragedy]

9. The Iraq invasion was opposed on its own terms, not because of

the Madrid bombings.

People turned very harshly on Aznar when it became apparent that he LIED about who committed the bombings. There was recently an official finding of misconduct by Aznar and the PP.

[manic expression]

12. I think their lies about the bombing

was just the last straw. People were fed up with the government, but the lie was the trigger that made people finally throw them out of office. It was more a combination, but the lies were definitely the nails in the coffin.

[geek tragedy]

17. Aznar still thinks it was ETA. Just in case people wondered

if someone was even more delusional than Bush.

[manic expression]

18. Are you serious?

Wow. I didn't know that. Anyway, I wonder if Bush even knows what ETA is, or what Basques are.

[evermind]

7. Surely there was a measure of popular support for exiting Iraq

which wasn't diminished in the face of the bombing. If a terrorist yells at you: "Don't put your head in that oven!" does that mean you have to put it in?

[geek tragedy]

10. It wasn't diminished--but the Spanish weren't going to be cowed

by a terrorist bombing into voting a government out.

Had Aznar not behaved so reprehensibly, he may still be in power. So, I guess we can be thankful for his lack of judgment.

[evermind]

15. Well, I don't know about this characterisation of "cowing" and

"appeasement" - doesn't that to some extent buy into the assumption, made by all the pro-war RW pundits ad nauseam in response to these incidents, that the war is fundamentally an OK thing to be doing?

If you see your country being hurt because of bad decisions made by your government, and feel more inclined to vote against that government and those decisions because of that hurt, that's just doing the right thing, call it what you will.

All the commentators I've heard on the radio today, though, from Tony Blair to Michael Howard (opposition Tory party leader) and Bush himself, have taken a line which is basically congruent with yours: "these barbaaric acts can only strengthen our resolve".

To see these attacks as additional reasons for weakening our resolve to pursue an immoral and unjust war is not a sign of appeasement or being cowed, it is a recognition of the reality of the dire consequences that unjust and immoral behaviour can bring, and a well-founded concern for the safety of one's nation, imho.

The easy equation: "against the war = for terrorism" is way too simplistic. It's perfectly possible (and rational) to be against both.

[geek tragedy]

16. Voting for someone because they opposed the Iraq war wasn't appeasement.

Switching one's vote because of a terrorist bombing, on the other hand, would be appeasement.

As I said, it was all about the slimeball Aznar's misbehavior.

[evermind]

19. Why is it appeasement, if you are brought face to face with the

consequences of bad policy, and change your vote? I just don't buy that.

As I speak Tony Blair is saying on the radio "they are trying to use the deaths of innocent people to cow us, to stop us doing what we want to do" (pursuing an immoral war in the name of democracy), etc. etc.,

Appeasement, as I read it, is to morally compromise oneself in response to threats. A withdrawal from Iraq was not morally compromising for the Spanish, and neither would it be now for the UK.

[geek tragedy]

20. Policy isn't bad just because terrorists will kill because of it.

What the terrorists want should not be a factor in voting. The terrorists did not "bring people face to face with the consequences of bad policy." They committed mass murder.

As I said, the Iraq war was wrong because of reasons having nothing to do with the Madrid bombing.

[evermind]

24. No, it's bad because it's unjust and immoral. And because it's unjust

and immoral, it's easier to recruit terrorists to kill trying to stop it.

The terrorists committed mass murder, AND brought people face to face with consequences. Those are not mutually exclusive.

The Iraq war was wrong, and that wrongness is part of the cause of the Iraq (and London) bombings, most likely.

[stickdog]

22. So if someone switched their vote from Nazi because of the Sobibor revolt,

would that also be appeasement? Why or why not?

Just trying to define the parameters of our terms here.

[geek tragedy]

23. Are you seriously equating terrorist bombings with Sobibor?

If not, your analogy makes no sense.

If so, you have some explaining to do.

[stickdog]

26. No. I'm merely asking where event-driven political analysis begins and

"appeasement" ends by using an endpoint-type example to illustrate that it has to end somewhere.

[Larkspur]

11. Spaniards were going to re-elect Anzar before the bombings

It was going to be close but the Spaniards supported Anzar's work against the Basque terrorist group. The Spaniards turned on Anzar not because of the bombings but because Anzar LIED about who committed the bombings. He said that the Madrid bombings were the work of Basque seperatists because the Spaniards supported his work against the Basques, and he tried to supress the real findings, which pointed to Al Queda. It was that lie, not the bombings, that sealed Anzar's political doom.

Rodriguez publicly supported pulling out of Iraq, and since the majority of Spaniards opposed Bush's war, they voted for Rodriguez, who you remember told John Kerry to bug off when the senator verbally reprimanded Rodriguez for fulfilling his promise to the Spanish people by withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq.

[Coexist]

27. kick

[dsc]

28. Spain got rid of those leaders because they lied about who

did the attacks not because of the attacks themselves.