An Irish woman's social, political and domestic commentary
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| GUBU An Irish woman's social, political and domestic commentary |
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Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Madrid
The spinning and sophistry over the catastrophe in Spain is quite extraordinary. John Waters takes a preposterous line but one quite consistent with the rest of the VRWC. I'll quote here at length from his column in the IT since they require a subscription "to propose that we should not act on principle because of what others may do in retaliation is to say: lie down and the monster will not hurt you. The West is plagued with such thinking, exacerbating the growing danger. At a time when, as Tony Blair said last week, resolve is what is needed to safeguard our people from the evil without, our leaders must instead defend themselves against naivete from within. The greatest threat to democracy may not arise from the evil of Islamic extremism, but from the virus of pacifism that attacks our best hopes of self-defence. The perpetrators of recent horrors, demonstrating an acute understanding of Western culture, are clearly intent upon exploiting the West's weakened resolve.... Notwithstanding that their pithiness fails to inspire the pitiless, such ideas are engrained now in the culture of the West, placing us in mortal danger. We stand, following the paralysing discussion about Iraq, at a point where the leaders, Bush, Blair, Aznar, who were forced to take a stand are at risk of being replaced by others who would pander to the general woolly belief that everything becomes possible with a little peace, love and understanding." This argument and others like it maintains that the Spanish people 'gave in' to terrorism by electing an anti-war governent. No one has a right to tell the Spanish people that they gave into terrorism. They had supported the PP's extremely tough line on ETA and it was that line that would have helped re-elect them. What they have demanded in this election is that the mistakes their previous government made with regard to Bush/Bliar are reversed. That is quite reasonable. The Spanish people's outrage at the PP was twofold. 1. Aznar took a spectacularly pro-Bush/Blair line despite the fact that 90% of Spaniards were opposed to the war. Millions marched against it on the international day of action. They didn't do that because they were afraid of becoming targets; but because the knew the war was so bogus. Anyone, except those relying on Cheney and Fox news for information, knew that Al Qaeda didn't exist in Iraq because Saddam, secularist to the end, had thrown them out. Of course, now that thanks to the war Al Qaeda has managed to associate its cause with Iraq, Spain did become a target and why wouldn't the people be extremely pissed off that their government's appalling error of judgement has walked them into this tragedy? 2. The final outrage was the government's pathetic efforts to blame it on ETA despite a denial from Batasuna and an admission from Al Qaeda! The Spanish are well able to be 'tough on terrorism' as they have proved in the near elimination of ETA so to portray them as cowards who have given in to violence is really insulting. More later. posted by Sarah | 19:00 0 comments
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