Politics: Onward from New Hampshire

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
But first things first. They have to prevent the West from getting a foothold in the middle east by establishing a second democracy. Democracy will kill their changes of establishing islamic states.

If that was their top priority, they'd be blowing up the democrats (small d) in Iraq. It's not like there are that many of them. Getting a couple thousand Spaniards out of Iraq is pretty immaterial.

You all assume, curiously, that anyone would have predicted that Spaniards would react to bombing by folding. Not how we would react, and not how they have reacted in the past to ETA. If you take the more plausible view that Spaniards would have rallied around their government, as I suspect we would, then Al Qaeda failed to achieve the intended result.

Ty, you are incredibly naive about the goals of Arab muslims. It is not just the so-called extremist Arab muslims that hate the west. Arab Muslims moderates and extremists alike feel emasculated by what happened centuries ago and blame the West for this.

Moderates and extremists alike are still pissed about what happened in Spain centuries ago and are willing to see what AQ did to the Spanish as divine retribution and a turning of the tide in the favor of islam.

Then it wasn't an attempt to elect Socialists, but revenge against the offspring of Ferdinand and Isabella? Make up your mind, would you.

Thank you for confirming that you are talking out of your ass about what moderate Muslims think.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
If Paigow posted here, she'd get rid of this sentence for us. i've heard it enough.

Whiff, you partisan.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

That the FCC's new censorship policies are having an effect.

CBS to institute 10-second delay for Final Four telecasts (including game coverage)

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If that was their top priority, they'd be blowing up the democrats (small d) in Iraq. It's not like there are that many of them. Getting a couple thousand Spaniards out of Iraq is pretty immaterial.

I didn't say it was their top priority to get the Spanards out of Iraq. They were punishing spain as they said they would do to US allies. They were showing the world they are to be feared.

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Then it wasn't an attempt to elect Socialists, but revenge against the offspring of Ferdinand and Isabella?

You are confused. There are two separate issues that we were discussing and you are confused about this. The first issue was AQ's goals. The second issue was whether moderate Arab Muslims are likely to be impressed by what AQ has done in Spain. These are different issues.

AQ wants to punish US allies and show it is a force to be reckoned with and to achieve its long term goal of a world under islamic control.

Moderate Arab muslims have different goals, but still they feel anger and resentment at the west for things that happened centuries ago.

Get it?

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Thank you for confirming that you are talking out of your ass about what moderate Muslims think.

You are naive if you think moderate Arab muslims don't feel resentment about their lack of world power and blame the west for this.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
If Paigow posted here, she'd get rid of this sentence for us. i've heard it enough.

It is Ty's canned response for when you have shown him to be wrong.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
They were showing the world they are to be feared.

Killing civilians is a good way to do that, no matter whether an election is involved. I tend to think that Al Qaeda wasn't trying to influence the election, because I think they are not as preoccupied with electoral politics as most Westerners are. We think losing an election is the end of the world. They surely think all of our politicians are the same. (Between that and the Pinto, Ralph Nader clearly has influenced them a lot.)

You are confused. There are two separate issues that we were discussing and you are confused about this. The first issue was AQ's goals. The second issue was whether moderate Arab Muslims are likely to be impressed by what AQ has done in Spain. These are different issues.

Probably so, but your posts are a welter of rambling thoughts. Too bad you weren't an English major.

You are naive if you think moderate Arab muslims don't hate the west and still feel resentment about their lack of world power.

Since you still cannot find any support for this notion of yours that moderate Muslims are celebrating the killings in Madrid, why don't we just drop it.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Killing civilians is a good way to do that, no matter whether an election is involved. I tend to think that Al Qaeda wasn't trying to influence the election, because I think they are not as preoccupied with electoral politics as most Westerners are. We think losing an election is the end of the world. They surely think all of our politicians are the same.

Ty, you really do have a problem with reading comprehension. I never said that the purpose of the bombing was to elect Socialists. The purpose of the bombing was to punish US allies. But I do think that they were well aware of when the elections were occurring, too.

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Probably so, but your posts are a welter of rambling thoughts. Too bad you weren't an English major.

My posts were easy to follow. You just don't like that I can so easily refute your points.

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Since you still cannot find any support for this notion of yours that moderate Muslims are celebrating the killings in Madrid, why don't we just drop it.

There is plenty of support for this. You just choose to ignore it.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Not Me
Ty, you really do have a problem with reading comprehension.

Saying this sort of thing repeatedly does not make it so.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Saying this sort of thing repeatedly does not make it so.

But Ty repeatedly getting confused by my posts when no one else does makes it so.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Two New York ministers hit with criminal charges for marrying gay couples.

Wow. It is, however, a Most Excellent Test Case for challenging state involvement in the institution of marriage. I think such a prosecution wouldn't pass muster under Employment Division v. Smith.

And they laughed at the Ninth Circuit for deciding the Pledge case as it did. I think we're soon going to see a trend in which all judges not named "Scalia" start to realize that social legislation enshrining religious principles needs to be justified based on something other than, um, religious principles.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
I never said that the purpose of the bombing was to elect Socialists. The purpose of the bombing was to punish US allies.

Then AQ's victory was killing people, not electing a Socialist. You were insisting that the election of a Socialist was an AQ victory. Now you're saying something else. OK.

There is plenty of support for this. You just choose to ignore it.

I'll stop ignoring it when you post something.

But Ty repeatedly getting confused by my posts when no one else does makes it so.

I'm the only one bothering to take you seriously. Sooner or later I'll get tired of it, too.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Then AQ's victory was killing people, not electing a Socialist.

Both were a victory for AQ.

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I'm the only one bothering to take you seriously. Sooner or later I'll get tired of it, too.

Feel free to put me on ignore any time you like.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

On the possibility that Spanish voters chose the Socialists because of the way Aznar et al. handled the bombings:

• The first answer is; no one can be sure until the evidence is in. The second one; no one can be told until the votes are in.
  
  Aznar’s government seemed to point out the culprits of the Madrid bombings last Thursday morning with an unseemly haste; ETA had done it and would be punished. The Justice minister expressed no doubt at all, even in what must have been appalling confusion in the immediate aftermath of the bombings. Aznar himself was careful not to name names, but clearly inferred that ETA was responsible. Even today, election day, government ministers are sticking to the party line. Ana Palacio, minister for foreign affairs, is still saying ETA is the ‘strong suspect’. Though, in a statement probably meant to clear the way for a future one blaming Al Qaeda, she does allow that ETA could have cooperated with Al Qaeda, as anything is possible in the dark world of terrorism. Meanwhile, rumours swirl around Spain by email and text message that the security and intelligence services have no doubt that Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda alone, is responsible.
  
  What is going on? An election, and one that may not give the right an overall majority. Here is Aznar’s calculation. If the bombings were done by Al Qaeda, the 90% of the Spanish population that opposed the war in Iraq will feel that Aznar brought it on them and vote for the opposition. (rightly or wrongly, but it’s a fair calculation.) If the bombings were done by ETA, it’s a death blow to the organisation that will help rally many undecided voters to the rightist governing party.
  
  In this situation, the decent thing to do is say we just don’t know who did it. The smart thing to do, absent proof or knowledge, is to blame ETA. Although a reaction to the government’s unfounded certainty has gathering pace in the last 24 hours, it is probably too late to affect the election. The government has the upper hand and the opposition is powerless to resist. Suspending campaigning helps the government - ministers must still make public statements and in doing so effectively campaign for the government by blaiming ETA.
  
  The opposition are reduced to expressing the country’s pain, but moves to challenge the reigning view on blame will be seen as politicising the national grief. Today, already, the government has condemned that a protest about the clampdown on information about the culprits is contrary to the suspension of the political campaign. The opposition is hamstrung, and it knows it. And in the moment of grief, it’s not even the most important thing;
  
  Today’s Observer reports:
  
  “Socialist leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is reported to have told his party to avoid any debate on ‘a cover-up’ while the dead are being buried and some of the 266 in hospital are still fighting for their lives.
  
  One senior Socialist said: ‘I have been biting my tongue all day in the face of such lies and deceit while there are 200 dead people.’ “
  
  The only decent thing to do in the face of cynical manipulation is to let it pass.
  
  We still don’t know who is responsible for the bombing. It could indeed have been ETA. But actions speak louder than words. The London Tube is on high alert, and the Paris Metro is plastered with notices to report suspicious packages and the like. Outside of Spain, nobody seems to have been fooled.

link

(note that this is at least a day old)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Same blog, different authors:

[T]here has been no suggestion from the Socialists that Spanish troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan. If the Spanish people are terrified of bin Laden and want to appease him, it seems strange to show this through continued backing of attempts to capture or kill him and prevent the restoration of the only government that’s ever openly embraced him.

And another:

There’s good reason to be wary of applying historical analogies to current events - comparing the Iraq war and Vietnam is usually as loaded and unhelpful as, say, comparing the Iraq war and World War II. However, there’s one way in which the US debate about Iraq is starting to look like the debate about Vietnam. It’s becoming ever less focused on Iraq as an actual place (to the extent that it ever was) and ever more concerned with Iraq as a battlefield in a vague and ill-defined war against the forces of evil, in which any setback gives succour to the enemy.

Even after the conduct of the Vietnam war became indefensible, many argued against pulling out because they said that a US defeat would embolden the forces of international Communism. Similarly, there’s a lot of talk today among the war blogs about Spanish “appeasement” and how a Spanish withdrawal from Iraq will strengthen and encourage al Qaeda. As John has already said [above], this interpretation does some violence to the actual motives of Spanish voters. Nor are the Socialists wimps on terrorism - the main reason that they lost power in 1996 was because of their vicious and illegal tactics in the ‘dirty war’ against ETA (torture, kidnapping, murder etc). If this is a victory for al Qaeda, it’s not a victory because the Spanish are seeking to appease terrorism. It’s a victory because it will be perceived by the current US administration and its supporters as being a defeat.

[Not Me]

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2650599

More than one in 10 British Muslims back al Qaida-style terror strikes on the United States, a poll has revealed.

Attacks on the US by al Qaida or other groups were viewed as justified by 13% of the 500 British Muslims questioned.