Will the Madrid bombing

[sable302]

help Bush get the attention away from Iraq, and the lack of WMD etc..., and back on Osama? They've been saying it for weeks with all the 'Osama cornered' and 'new push to find Bin Laden' type headlines.

Terror attacks all seem to fit well with the president's playbook anyway.

[yardwork]

1. This is a problem for Bush

He's spent billions of dollars and thousands of human lives fighting a war on terrorism that appears to have failed miserably.

[Skittles]

12. his actions have increased terrorism

how many terrorists has Bush Inc CREATED ?

[mlawson]

14. Hmmm. He *could* say that this hasn't happened again in the US

because HE is on guard. That would be very risky, but I could see it paying off among certain voters.

[orwell]

2. Breakdown

Whether or not it does, the fact that we have all become so cynical speaks volumes to the complete breakdown of trust and political discourse in Amerika.

Whoever wins in November will lead a fractured Nation.

O

[placton]

5. You make a VERY good point .

The Repugs may very well have destroyed our country - permanently - with their antics since Reagan in the late 70s. I think there is a good argument to make for HIM as the worst president ever - he began this.

[worldgonekrazy]

8. i'd say it began with nixon

the only differences between him and reagan (and both bush's as well) is that they are more extreme and they learned from nixon's mistakes.

[sable302]

7. agreed

but I am cynical. It makes me sad to think about it this way, but I just can't help it these days.

[orwell]

10. Tinfoil Tunic

My post was not meant as an attack on you personally sable. I wear tinfoil long underwear. It is amazing to me that I distrust these Bush Bastards so much that my first thought after hearing about this latest atrocity was that they were behind this somehow.

It shows how far I have gone down the rabbit hole.

O

[SheilaT]

3. Maybe for a half hour or so.

The majority of Americans probably cannot locate Spain on a map and are not going to care at all about the two hundred or so who died. And since the reasons involve details of Spanish politics, they will care even less.

One of my first thoughts upon hearing the news, was that if something like that happened here, all the commuter trains across the country would be shut down indefinitely, which would play havoc with several million commuters. And of course since the people making the decision to shut down the trains themselves are driven to work in a car or limousine, they wouldn't care at all how disruptive that would be.

[dsewell]

4. It should refocus attention on our need to be a good ally

If it turns out to be the work of Al Qaeda or a related group rather than ETA, it will be a pretty damning indictment of the effects of Bush Administration's tunnel vision in going after war in Iraq. Spain is supposed to be an ally, a "coalition partner"--and we won't have been able to cooperate with them closely enough to prevent this kind of insanity from happening in Madrid? It will also underline the moral viciousness of the Bush line that regime change in Iraq "takes the war against terror out of our backyard"--right, we'll push it off to Europe.

But whether it's ETA or an Al Qaeda-esque group, the real lesson of the Madrid bombing is that the USA needs to be a genuine partner to European nations, no more of this "coalition of the willing" bullshit, no more of this go-it-alone arrogance.

[Jacobin]

6. Won't matter a bit because

Most Americans couldn't even find Spain on a map.

[eissa]

9. LOL, reminds me of a joke during Gulf War 1

What's the difference between a smart bomb and an American high school student?

The smart bomb knows where Iraq is.

[punistation]

11. A fearful Aussie gal.

BEFORE the war in Iraq, America promised it would make the world safer.

AFTER the war, America promised the world is safer.

...what happened?


We begged America: Saddam is no threat. Go after Al Qaeda. Go after Osama. What have you been doing these past 2 years?

[nostamj]

13. it's bad for him if it is AQ

why?

he has claimed over and over and over and over that 'two-thirds of the al Qaeda leadership has been caught or killed'

of course, the insipid chimp has never offered an iota of evidence that's he done that but...

he wants to run on 'trust me to protect you' and, if it is aQ, it is bad for him.