Phantom Stranger

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Posts by Phantom Stranger

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  102

  Congratulations, Spain - first government to fall because of Iraq, Bush!

  by TheOldHippie in

  1. social
  2. current

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  congratulations to the spanish people, who voted the socialists to power as a protest against the conservative government's supporting bush's war on iraq, and for claiming the madrid bombs were acts of the eta nationalists and not an al-qaida attack because of the war on iraq.. so one government has fallen, and there are many more to come, bush.. who says these days ain't fun?

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  Phantom Stranger

  shamus, would you mind illuminating us ... or do you just want to fly in and do the seagull thing on the thread and fly away?
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  102

  Congratulations, Spain - first government to fall because of Iraq, Bush!

  by TheOldHippie in

  1. social
  2. current

  .

  congratulations to the spanish people, who voted the socialists to power as a protest against the conservative government's supporting bush's war on iraq, and for claiming the madrid bombs were acts of the eta nationalists and not an al-qaida attack because of the war on iraq.. so one government has fallen, and there are many more to come, bush.. who says these days ain't fun?

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  Phantom Stranger

  "Isn't the democracy in Iraq our best hope for a stable, peaceful relationship with the Islamic world? "

  No, it is not. Not that one. Our best hope was, and continues to be, an international force implementing a constitutional form of government over years - years! - with a gradual transition to democracy.

  An instant transition to democracy will only result in a democratically-elected hard-line Islamist state that almost instantly will start getting rid of constitutionally-protected liberties.

  Democracy only worked in the US because there was a tradition of rule of law, of justice - and the culture inherited from the British gave some expectation of how a government on principles could operate - even if the British government came up short in that regard for Americans.

  Every time "instant democracy" has been tried in countries with tradition of corruption and oppression, it's struggled or failed. Putin's recent' "election" is a great example, but there are others. There needs to be some stability and some culture of "rule of law" before democracy can succeed - it's no "magic pill".

  Spain's incoming PM has repeatedly stated that Spain has no problem being part of a UN force in Iraq.
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  4

  Original International Relay Chat logs of the Bible....

  by Country Girl in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

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  pretty entertaining.... http://www.ircbible.destrukto-theater.nl/.

  cg

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  Phantom Stranger

  Why is this under "child abuse"?
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  135

  Victory for Terrorism

  by Yerusalyim in

  1. social
  2. current

  the terrorists won a great victory in spain.

  mind you, i'm all for the democratic process...it's great...and had the spanish decided to part ways with the us of it's own volition, great!...however, the socialists were project to not win a majority in this weekends election...that is until the terrorist attack.

  now, with the socialist coming into power...and the promise to both withdraw the 1300 spanish soldiers from iraq and to part ways with the us on foriegn policy we can look for more such attacks in other countries.

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  Phantom Stranger

  Well...this looks interesting...

  CNN also has obtained a document posted on an Internet message board analysts believe is used by al Qaeda and its sympathizers that spells out the terrorist group's plan to separate Spain from the U.S.-led coalition on Iraq.

  The strategy spelled out in the document, posted last December on the Internet, calls for using terrorist attacks to drive Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Partido Popular from power and replace it with the Socialists.

  That was expected to drive a wedge between Washington and Madrid and result in the withdrawal of Spanish military forces from Iraq.

  "We think the Spanish government will not stand more than two blows, or three at the most, before it will be forced to withdraw because of the public pressure on it," the al Qaeda document says.

  "If its forces remain after these blows, the victory of the Socialist Party will be almost guaranteed -- and the withdrawal of Spanish forces will be on its campaign manifesto."
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  27

  Elder's visit

  by brooklynNY in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i haven?t posted much in the past.

  however, i enjoy reading the many topics.. i would like your thoughts regarding the following:.

  after no contact with anyone in my former congregation (aside from being shunning) for the last eight years, i walk into work this morning and check my voice mail to find i have a message from one of the elders.

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  Phantom Stranger

  Dude...keep on walkin'.

  Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
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  135

  Victory for Terrorism

  by Yerusalyim in

  1. social
  2. current

  the terrorists won a great victory in spain.

  mind you, i'm all for the democratic process...it's great...and had the spanish decided to part ways with the us of it's own volition, great!...however, the socialists were project to not win a majority in this weekends election...that is until the terrorist attack.

  now, with the socialist coming into power...and the promise to both withdraw the 1300 spanish soldiers from iraq and to part ways with the us on foriegn policy we can look for more such attacks in other countries.

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  Phantom Stranger

  Whatever anyone thinks of Michael Moore, he didn't write about the effects of a train bombing on Spanish elections... which is the topic of this thread...

  Some research indicates that AQ did not issue a statement even mentioning the Bali bombings until a month later... so either AQ varied from their MO due to the proximity to the election, or ETA did it and set things up to look like AQ did it and played the Popular Party for a fool.

  The Popular Party was a bit on the bubble... a year ago they were forecast to lose this election, due to Spain's massive popular antiwar position. Additionally, the Popular Party had proposed a punishment of up to six years for protesting against any international military effort (they couldn't call it a war because Spain's parliament has not declared war either). The Popular Party had been out of power for decades before Aznar because they had high-level members tightly linked to Franco...

  What would it take for 77% of eligible American voters to show up on Election Day? And what party would win, I wonder?
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  135

  Victory for Terrorism

  by Yerusalyim in

  1. social
  2. current

  the terrorists won a great victory in spain.

  mind you, i'm all for the democratic process...it's great...and had the spanish decided to part ways with the us of it's own volition, great!...however, the socialists were project to not win a majority in this weekends election...that is until the terrorist attack.

  now, with the socialist coming into power...and the promise to both withdraw the 1300 spanish soldiers from iraq and to part ways with the us on foriegn policy we can look for more such attacks in other countries.

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  Phantom Stranger

  David Mathieson http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1169666,00.html
  Monday March 15, 2004
  
  "Ganamos sin mentiras!" chanted the crowd outside the socialist party (PSOE) headquarters in the centre of Madrid last night: "We have won without lies." Spin was indeed at the centre of PSOE's extraordinary, unexpected triumph, and that should serve as a warning to Tony Blair.

  There is no word in Spanish for "spin", but there has been no absence of the practice in Madrid over the last year - and especially in the past few days. The spectacular gains made by PSOE last night were in large part a result of the government's clumsy attempts at media manipulation following the Madrid bombs on Thursday.

  As soon as the news of the attacks broke, Popular Party (PP) spokesmen and government ministers denied that the bombings could be the work of al-Qaida. With a general election 72 hours away the stakes could not have been higher. Fearing that voters would be quick to make a link between the carnage at Atocha railway station and Jose Maria Aznar's support for the war in Iraq, the PP began the operation to spin its way out of trouble. The party had just three days to avoid the charge that it had attracted the bombers by supporting a war that was opposed by 90% of Spaniards. A bucketload of seats would be lost - a consequence that had to be avoided at all cost.

  There would have been a double bonus for the PP if they could have successfully deflected the blame onto the Basque terrorist group, Eta. A central plank of the government's election platform had been that PSOE are "soft" on Basque terrorism.

  The charge arises from the fact that the socialists govern the Catalonia region in a coalition that includes a tiny Catalan independence party. Foolishly, the leader of that party held secret talks with Eta leaders in France just after Christmas. Despite being sacked immediately from the Catalan administration by the socialist president, the charge stuck - the socialists were prepared to do deals with parties that talk to terrorists.

  When the bombers struck on Thursday morning, everyone knew that on top of the human misery there would be electoral consequences. The identity of the bombers was crucial. If they were Basque, voters would punish PSOE; but if they were al-Qaida, the PP would lose seats. Supported by a compliant state media machine which Vladimir Putin would be proud of, the government started spinning.

  Following the golden rule that the first impression is what counts, the government set about getting their version into the public domain. So the prime minister quickly phoned round the editors of the four national daily newspapers, who dutifully responded by printing special editions reporting what they had been told: it was Eta.

  This was followed by a series of press conferences from the interior minister who, without offering any hard evidence, insisted that Eta was responsible and poured scorn on those who had said otherwise. They were, he said, "pathetic", and their alternative theories "poisonous". As a leftwing radio station started to produce a series of reports casting doubt on the official version, the government refused to acknowledge the Copernican revolution that was taking place around them. The spinning went on.

  On the night before the election, a crowd of around 5000 surrounded the PP headquarters in Madrid chanting "who was it?". On top of the agony of the bomb, people were furious at government attempts to hide the truth. Yesterday, voters took their revenge.
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  135

  Victory for Terrorism

  by Yerusalyim in

  1. social
  2. current

  the terrorists won a great victory in spain.

  mind you, i'm all for the democratic process...it's great...and had the spanish decided to part ways with the us of it's own volition, great!...however, the socialists were project to not win a majority in this weekends election...that is until the terrorist attack.

  now, with the socialist coming into power...and the promise to both withdraw the 1300 spanish soldiers from iraq and to part ways with the us on foriegn policy we can look for more such attacks in other countries.

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  Phantom Stranger

  'The price of lies'
  
  The reaction of the European press to Spanish voters' rejection of José María Aznar, in the wake of the Madrid bombings, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1169810,00.html

  Whatever their political allegiances, Spain's newspapers are unanimous today on one thing: that in the wake of the last week's deadly assault on the country's political system, the unusually large turnout in Sunday's general election was a sign that far from being damaged, Spanish democracy has been strengthened and reinforced.

  Among the 77% of the eligible population who cast their votes, the liberal-leaning El País notes that young voters and those of the centre-left who stayed at home in the 2000 election that saw José María Aznar returned to power came out in force to deliver what the paper describes as a "serious fiasco" for the outgoing prime minister's Popular party (PP).

  In an editorial entitled Of Lies (in Spanish, registration required), the paper delivers Aznar and his government a bitter rebuke, putting its defeat down largely to "inevitable sense of manipulation and deception the electorate felt" over its reaction to the Madrid bombings.

  "But as if that was not serious enough, the worst mistake which accompanies Aznar's farewell is his dogged insistence in converting his particular obsessions and questionable ideas about Spain, the Spanish, and the way in which they are governed into dogma," the paper says, before concluding that it was "the manipulation, the lies, the offensive use of the argument of the war against terror to justify just about any policy, the blatant opportunism and puerile arrogance that caused those in power to lose it yesterday.

  Under the banner headline 'Spain castigates the PP and puts its trust in Zapatero' (Spanish), the centre-right El Mundo said that voters had "fiercely chastised the PP for its management of the crisis and had presented [the government] with the overdue bill for the war in Iraq."

  "Aznar signed the invoice [at pre-war summit with Bush and Blair] in the Azores, and [his successor] Rajoy is paying it now," the paper noted in an analysis similar if less fiercely critical than that of El País.
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  102

  Congratulations, Spain - first government to fall because of Iraq, Bush!

  by TheOldHippie in

  1. social
  2. current

  .

  congratulations to the spanish people, who voted the socialists to power as a protest against the conservative government's supporting bush's war on iraq, and for claiming the madrid bombs were acts of the eta nationalists and not an al-qaida attack because of the war on iraq.. so one government has fallen, and there are many more to come, bush.. who says these days ain't fun?

  1. 
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  Phantom Stranger

  For those interested in the varied international response to the Spanish election, there are summaries and links here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2097165/
• 
  135

  Victory for Terrorism

  by Yerusalyim in

  1. social
  2. current

  the terrorists won a great victory in spain.

  mind you, i'm all for the democratic process...it's great...and had the spanish decided to part ways with the us of it's own volition, great!...however, the socialists were project to not win a majority in this weekends election...that is until the terrorist attack.

  now, with the socialist coming into power...and the promise to both withdraw the 1300 spanish soldiers from iraq and to part ways with the us on foriegn policy we can look for more such attacks in other countries.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Phantom Stranger

  For those interested in the varied international response to the Spanish election, there are summaries and links here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2097165/