A tragic day
Mar. 15th, 2004 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueToday will be one remembered in history.
The socialist party won the elections in spain.
The details may be found here.
Don't get me wrong though. I'm sure that the spanish socialist party are a thoroughly solid bunch. And they won a democratic election. I think that under their rule Spain will do just fine.
The real tragedy is that they weren't going to win before the recent train explosion. I believe this is a disaster even beyond those that happened at the world trade centre.
Very simply. It has now been demonstrated that terrorism works. The world has now seen an objective lesson that if you kill a hundred people in a train incident, the people who were expected to win the elections with 70% of the vote, didn't.
We now have all the proof these psychopaths need that 'their way' of suicide bombings, plane crashes, car bombs and a plethora of atrocities actually work.
A terrorist has no regard for human life, other than how it may be used to advance their cause.
The other thing I have heard is that the train explosion was terrible because x people died, and y were injured. That's the wrong way of looking at it. Whenever you refer to numbers of casualties you're obscuring the fact that each and every one were individuals. With families, friends and lives
If I should die in a terrorist attack, I would ask that you do not consider the 'what ifs'. The responsibility for my death is soley because some psychopath thought it was to their advantage. Not because of any wars, political choices, racial hatred or otherwise.
The person who made and placed the bomb are simply murderers. The same as the person who murders a family member for their inheritance. To give any further weight to them is a guarantee that it will happen again.
Terrorists have no cause.
They exist only to cause chaos and misery - everything else is just an excuse. A tool for them to continue. They are the small minded attention seekers. Ignore them and get on with life. Mourn for those lost, and hope that there will be no recurrence. Issue warrants for the arrest of mass murderers. But give the terrorists exactly what they deserve.
Nothing.
That is how we win the war on terror.
The socialist party won the elections in spain.
The details may be found here.
Don't get me wrong though. I'm sure that the spanish socialist party are a thoroughly solid bunch. And they won a democratic election. I think that under their rule Spain will do just fine.
The real tragedy is that they weren't going to win before the recent train explosion. I believe this is a disaster even beyond those that happened at the world trade centre.
Very simply. It has now been demonstrated that terrorism works. The world has now seen an objective lesson that if you kill a hundred people in a train incident, the people who were expected to win the elections with 70% of the vote, didn't.
We now have all the proof these psychopaths need that 'their way' of suicide bombings, plane crashes, car bombs and a plethora of atrocities actually work.
A terrorist has no regard for human life, other than how it may be used to advance their cause.
The other thing I have heard is that the train explosion was terrible because x people died, and y were injured. That's the wrong way of looking at it. Whenever you refer to numbers of casualties you're obscuring the fact that each and every one were individuals. With families, friends and lives
If I should die in a terrorist attack, I would ask that you do not consider the 'what ifs'. The responsibility for my death is soley because some psychopath thought it was to their advantage. Not because of any wars, political choices, racial hatred or otherwise.
The person who made and placed the bomb are simply murderers. The same as the person who murders a family member for their inheritance. To give any further weight to them is a guarantee that it will happen again.
Terrorists have no cause.
They exist only to cause chaos and misery - everything else is just an excuse. A tool for them to continue. They are the small minded attention seekers. Ignore them and get on with life. Mourn for those lost, and hope that there will be no recurrence. Issue warrants for the arrest of mass murderers. But give the terrorists exactly what they deserve.
Nothing.
That is how we win the war on terror.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 02:11 am (UTC)From what I've read, it seems that the political shift wasn't just because of the bombing - it was because of the governmnet's reaction to the bombing, loudly blaming it on ETA again and again, even when evidence pointing at Al-Qaeda was accumulating.
The Spanish public perceived them as putting political advantage ahead of security & the truth - the "hard on ETA" platform has been a government strongpoint, popular with the Spanish people, whereas the involvement in Iraq was anything but, so blaming ETA had some benefits...
Having said all that, according to the BBC... the Socialists are already planning to pull out of Iraq unless sovereignty goes back to the people. Not sure what I think of that.
On one hand, it sounds like they're yielding to terrorism. On the other, they're attempting to pressure GWB to fix things (which is good), and I think this is the policy they had prior to the bombings... so changing it would also be an odd decision.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 02:15 am (UTC)The problem is, that regardless of what it would have been, there's a reasonable degree of uncertainty about whether terrorism did have an effect - which is enough.
It has now been demonstrated that terrorism works.
Date: 2004-03-15 04:24 am (UTC)It's unclear that that's true of this incident - involvement in the Iraq war had already reduced the PP's popularity, and most commentators seem to be blaming their initial blame on ETA rather than the bombings, for the shift. Of course, whether this is really the case - whether that's the thought process going on the mind of the individual voters - is hard to tell.
EOKA or the Irgun might be places to look for clearer examples of terrorism 'working'. If you want an Al-Qaeda example, perhaps the rapid departure of US forces from Saudi Arabia after the Iraq war (though the US will doubtless argue otherwise).
Re: It has now been demonstrated that terrorism works.
Date: 2004-03-15 05:36 am (UTC)Terrorists bomb trains,
Different party wins the election.
I believe that what terrorists are looking for is attention and substantiation that their methods work. And this is all the evidence they need.