Bombs kill 173 in Spain

Originally posted by Falgarok
Frankly, GigaShadow, I\'d think that I know better what happened than you do.

Everything is much more complex than you think; I\'ll give you the details, so you can judge for yourself what happened.

The main thing that you have to understand, is that in the last four years our government, has been completely ignoring us after they got a full majority in the past elections.

Apart from many other things (that I\'m not going to list here, but caused a lot of social conflict), they unilaterally decided to support Iraq invasion, despite the fact that more than 90% of the population was against it and there were demonstrations with millions of spaniards in the streets.

Then, last week, AQ attacked four trains full of passengers, most of them students and workers, with the result of more than +200 dead, and +1,500 wounded.

Most people were sad or angry about the attacks, but nothing else. We\'ve been living with terrorist attacks for more than 30 years, and have first hand experience with how terrorists work.

I think that if they had said AQ was responsible for the attacks from the start, and that they were going to do their best to fight against them, most people in Spain would have understood; PP would have lost some votes, but they would have gained some as well from the people who was angry about the attacks; the same thing happened to Bush, and he gained popularity.

But they didn\'t.

The last four days previous to the elections, they were trying to hide information from the citizens about AQ\'s involvement in the terrorist attack (including amazing levels of media manipulation, in fear that it could affect their re-election in some way.

When the details about AQs involvement were leaked into the public opinion a few hours after the attacks, all their strategy backfired, but they kept lying; a lot of spaniards took that as a disrespect for those who had died in the attacks .

Despite that, most people didn\'t change their vote; PP lost about a million voters from the last elections (most of them, before the attacks actually happened), which would have been enough to win this time as well. What changed with the attacks and the following manipulation, is that they gave a reason to vote to a lot of the people who usually don\'t give a damn about elections (mainly young people, who was already fed up with their despotic government).

That new blood the government lies brought into the equation, is what gave the PSOE enough votes to win, not because we feared being attacked. We had already been attacked and knew that we\'re going to be part of AQ\'s list of objectives for years, no matter what. We knew that from the moment our government supported the war, and that didn\'t change last year\'s elections (the PP won).

It\'s not different than if Bush were kicked out of the White House after he lied about the mass destruction weapons. It\'s matter of respect.

How do you know the "PP" lost a million voters from the last election prior to the election... the latest polls prior to the attack had the "PP" with a comfortable lead...

So if no bomb went off prior to the election you are still saying the conservative party would have lost?!?!?  Exit poll interviews showed that many people weren\'t even going to vote until the bombing and felt that the previous government brought about the attacks in Madrid by supporting the war in Iraq.  

I really don\'t care what party won, but to pull out of war because of fear of attacks is pure cowardace.  I have lost much respect for Spain and especially your new PM.  He is the most gutless opportunistic politician I have seen of late.  If all it takes is 200 deaths for Spain to surrender, the Brits should move north out of Gibraltar and take the rest of Spain.  It would only take an artillery shell or two.
:rolleyes:

We suffer an attack 100X worse and did we cower and make deals?  What really makes the Spanish look bad is that Spain is the only democratic country in the Western Hemisphere to validate terrorism.  Truly sad.  

Can someone resurrect Franco?  Please?

No, they (the PP) lost a million voters from previous elections as a whole, but they lost a lot of voters during the electoral campaign; you can easily check that.

Spanish troops being pulled out of Irak has to do with an electoral promise of the PSOE, which was the biggest opposer to the war. They promised that if, after they were elected, the UN were still not supporting the invasion of Irak, they\'d call our troops back.

To tell you the truth, most people don\'t see anything wrong with having our troops there as peace forces. What spaniards don\'t want, is to see our soldiers killing innocent people in the streets in a war that we consider illegal.

And, again, the PSOE won as a result of people being fed up with the lies of the PP, in this four years and, especially, after the attacks, not because we fear to be attacked again.

In fact, we all know that we\'ll be attacked again, and we\'ll be supporting any legitimate measure to fight against the terrorists.


PS: One last thing, asking for Franco to resurrect is like asking for Hitler to resurrect; I don\'t know if you understand what a dictator is.

Even as a joke, is a bit insulting, so can I ask for a little more of respect to a nation\'s history?

Franco wasn\'t Hitler... that is for sure.  Yes, he attacked Communists and leftists in general, but a Hitler he was not.  

As for Spanish troops killing innocent civilians... the only way that would happen is by accident - ie. if the Iraqi civilian does something stupid like run a checkpoint.  The troops over there are a doing a good job and the latest poll in Iraq showed that most Iraqi\'s think they are better off now then they were a year ago under Saddam.  

I don\'t like having our troops thier either, but leaving now will only make things worse.

I agree.

Now that the bad is done, we can\'t just get out of the country as if nothing ever happened.

The problem now is that PSOE made that demagogic promise when they thought they\'d no chance of winning, and they would be seen as liars if they start backpedalling.

PS: I said Hitler, because they\'re good friends, sorry; but you get the point.

[Kurt Angle]

Did you guys know that it was exactly 911 days between the twin towers attack and the Madrid bombings? :eek:

They are trying to give it a religious meaning to spread the fear and justify their actions to themselves.

Quite sad, actually.

[clips]

i heard poland is pulling out too. wtf?