Blood on YOUR Hands - Comments Page 3

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• 76 - Eric Olsen

  Mar 16, 2004 at 10:59 am

  Six degrees of Tommy Franks

• 77 - Joe

  Mar 16, 2004 at 11:12 am

  First off, I only read Cigar Afficianado for the pictures, and second, I'm not taking the time just to find out the article is actually based on an interview with Franks' driver. Can't you just quote me some Fisk or Pilger? I prefer unbiased reporting.

• 78 - Eric Olsen

  Mar 16, 2004 at 11:18 am

  People, if it isn't in EvilAmerica-Corporations-Bush.net, it doesn't exist.

• 79 - mike

  Mar 16, 2004 at 11:46 am

  ha ha ha. i'm just waiting for the suspension of the writ of habeus corpus--the essence of martial law--followed by Eric Olsen's "Oh, gosh, how unfortunate, but I reluctantly conclude it's the right thing to do under the circumstances; painful, painful, the choices we have to make in these dark times; I think I'll go do even more hand-wringing.....gosh, gosh, oh dear...."

• 80 - Eric Olsen

  Mar 16, 2004 at 11:55 am

  Re the war on terror, I unashamedly wring my hands over certain elements of the Patriot Act, over every allied death, and every civilian death of whatever nationality. Other than that, I'm cool.

• 81 - Tom Adleman

  Mar 16, 2004 at 12:47 pm

  There is a Jimmy Buffett song with a line, "Don't try to describe the ocean if you've never seen it." I can not think of a more apt application than to your opinions. I can not imagine you have ever been far enough away from your computer to know what an Arab looks like.
  
  I spent a year in Saudi Arabia. The folks you are trying to defend would bend you over the camel saddle in a Islamic second.
  
  Why don't you do something constructive like put up a web site to take donations for the terrorits that lost their lives on 9/11. Your rationale suggests that it is OUR fault they killed OUR citizens. I mean the poor bastards must need some money for killing innocent men, women and children, no?
  
  You, I am quite sure, don't have the balls to do anything but try and create as much controversy as possible for some reason that must be as stupid as your are.
  
  Allah Akbar!

• 82 - David

  Mar 16, 2004 at 1:17 pm

  From thismodernworld
  
  

  I don't claim to know much about internal Spanish politics, and I suspect many of the people leaping to conclusions about the Meaning of it All are pretty much in the same boat. For what it's worth, I got an email from a Spanish reader this morning, giving his take on the situation, and it doesn't make the Spanish people look like quite the cowardly appeasers some want to portray them as. I'm reprinting it in full below. (Usual caveat: I don't know the correspondent personally, on the internet know one knows you're a dog, blah blah blah.)

  
  
  

  As you will know well, Islamic terrorists blew four commuter trains in Madrid in the morning of March 11th, 2004, three days before general elections. This trains were packed with workers and students going to their jobs and classrooms, and covered the route known as "Corredor del Henares", a collection of working-class suburbs. They killed 201 people (up to today). There were 1,500 wounded. There're still dozens of people in critical or very grave state, and some of them could die. When the bombs exploded, two
  of the trains were very near to Atocha central station, one was stopped in El Pozo del Tío Raimundo station (a very combative, traditionally leftist, working-class district) where many people was killed in the platforms, and the last one was very near to Santa Eugenia station, another working-class area. The explosive was a kind of industrial dynamite made in Spain used in mining and widely exported known as Goma-2, trademark Eco. The bombs were hidden in handbags with ten to twelve kilos of Goma-2 each one, and they were triggered using inexpensive cell phones. Given the trains and platforms were packed with people (it was about 7.40 in the morning), they caused an immediate and pavorous carnage. It is said that the terrorists attempted to sweep the Atocha station where the four trains ended their route, going for an 11S-sized massacre (ed. note: 11 September, i.e. 9/11) by killing several thousand people in this main station of Madrid. Only the traditional lack of punctuality in Spanish commuter services avoided this barbarous result.
  
  

  The behavior of the people was of utter heroism. I must say it, I didn't expect it and I'm very proud of my people now. When the victims in the trains started shouting "neighbours, neighbours, please help us!" to the surrounding buildings, hundreds of every age and sex rushed downstairs to help, even understanding that there were bombs and could be more. Commuter drivers in nearby roads stopped their cars and took the horribly mutilated and burnt woundeds to area hospitals even before the first ambulances arrived. Even some people who were inside the trains stayed to help others instead of fleeing! Please believe me when I tell you that the people of Madrid behave EXCEPTIONALLY and with rare bravery and solidarity in these very hard minutes. I use to be quite cynic, but this defies any cynicism. It was epic, heroic, I don't have words. Those thinking that the Spanish people is being coward should reconsider their opinion in the light of this.

  
  
  

  After more than 30 years of ETA terrorism, many people thought at once that this murderers well known to the Spanish people had caused the massacre. But well-informed people immediately noticed it was a classical "Chechen attack", completely different of what ETA has done up to today and essentially identical to the Moscow subway attack several weeks ago. This caused some turmoil, specially when a pro-ETA spokesman made the point. Some minutes later, Interior (Security) Minister Angel Acebes declared openly that the authors were ETA and anyone denying it was a "miserable".

  
  
  

  Now let me explain to you this turmoil. ETA is an independentist Basque terrorist group who declares itself "marxist-leninist". The Conservative government of José María Aznar has fought hard to combat it while avoiding any concession to moderate Basque nationalists, saying that the only possible way to manage the issue is "the hard one". Some weeks ago, a member of the Socialist / Nationalist coalition Government in Catalonia met ETA representatives and the Aznar goverment used this to proclaim that Socialist weren't hard enough against ETA since they shared government in Catalonia with a guy that spoke to terrorists. If the authors of the carnage were ETA, Aznar government would have been reinforced in their opinion that against those beasts, only force can solve the problem and the Socialists and their Nationalist friends were too weak to do it.

  
  
  

  But if the authors were Islamic, a very different panorama arose. The opposition in Spain against Bush's war in Iraq was very important. I don't know if it reached 90% as it has been stated in this groups, but there surely was a wide majority against a conflict that common Spaniards didn't buy. There were massive demonstrations, with several million people in them, against the involvement of Spain in the war. In despite of this, José María Aznar government went to war with Bush and Blair. Many people went home thinking "this guy is involving us in a madmen's war that we don't want and will provoke bloody consequences". If Islamics blew the trains, it was a strong confirmation of this position, something that could only focus anger against Aznar's Government.

  
  
  

  So, many people began to ask "who did it?", "not all of us are here, we lack 200" and "we want the truth before voting" already in the mammoth antiterrorist demonstrations on Friday. The Government stuck to the ETA hypothesis trying to avoid this probable electoral damage. They must have thought that using their massive media control they could cover it up for four days, until election's aftermath. Government-controlled public and private televisions, radios and newspapers broadcasted once and again "it was ETA", but each minute less people was buying it. It has been said that workers of some of this media were near to revolt because of the pressures to avoid the Islamic hypothesis (today, EFE -Spanish state press agency- workers' unions have asked for the immediate resignation of their boss because of this). But then, media not controlled by the Government started broadcasting the Islamic hypothesis and how the controlled media were manipulating the whole issue. In a matter of hours, Spain was bipolarized, with thousands seeking information in Internet and sending it via SMS to their friends. IMHO, the Government went mad and commited suicide in this moment. They agreed there were "Islamic clues" but said once and again it was ETA although the mass crime was claimed three times by Al-Qaeda and there were several tapes (two or three, still unknown) with Islamic messages claiming "Operation Trains of Death" in Madrid and threatening "Smoke of Death" in Italy and "Winds of Death" in the USA. Millions began to think they were being lied, with the blood of 200 Spaniards still warm. SMS messages with the truth spreaded very quickly (I received about 50 from about 40 different sources). In workers' districts through the country, people began to protest beating pans in the windows and shouting "they make wars, we suffer them", "we are not puppets" and "Spain is not to be lied". Others demonstrated before Aznar's party offices in different cities singing "Liars, liars!" and "Culprits, culprits!". In Madrid, these demonstrations united over 3,000 people, probably many more according to the images seen on TV. When police started asking for ID's, they showed their ID cards to the international TV cameras deployed there shouting "Urdaci, look at my face!" (Urdaci is the information director in the channel 1 of Spanish public television, massively involved in the coverup). Sort of a lightweight civil revolt, as you can see. Nothing serious, but obviously damaging to the ruling party. As a last error, Mariano Rajoy (Government's party candidate, since Aznar was retiring) spoke on TV blaming these demos as "antidemocratic and illegal". For a Government widely perceived as too authoritary and non-negotiating, this sealed their fate.

  
  
  

  And Sunday came, and it was election's day. I didn't see fear. I saw mourning. A strange feeling, believe me. Spaniards use to be very funny. People is continously laughing and making jokes about everything, specially the younger. Watching all that people lining up to vote without a laugh nor a smile was impressive. And there was something more in truckloads of eyes. Anger. Deep anger. No incidents.

  
  
  

  Aznar-Rajoy's party lost about one million votes. Not much, it's true, given the situation. But three million voters arose essentially from disenchanted abstentionists to nail them. And almost all of these voters supported the Socialist Party, the main opposition group that had spoken openly against the Iraq war and was also denouncing the media manipulation. This inverted completely the results, where Rajoy had started as favorite. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, not Mariano Rajoy, will be the next president of Spain.

  
  
  

  What will happen now? First, don't get confused. Although named "Spanish Socialist Workers' Party", the Socialist Party is a center-left organization that during their past Government period (1982-1996) brought Spain in NATO and faced several general strikes because of their pro-Capitalist economic policy. So "centrist" was their policy, that a truly Socialist leftwing party called Izquierda Unida could appear around the Communist Party (libertarian eurocommunists, not the totalitary ones) and is continuously supported by hundreds of thousands of disenchanted ex-Socialists. Even more, Rodríguez Zapatero is a very moderate politician usually perceived as too soft as opposer to the Government.
  
  But since he leaded the majoritary opposition group, angry voters perceived him as the best option to oust Aznar and Rajoy.

  
  
  

  In despite of this, the Socialist Party knows that these three million additional voters who have taken them to the Government, plus their traditional eight million voters, have voted saying "hey, José Luis, disengage us from that mad Bush (Bush is widely perceived in Europe as an illiterate crazy cowboy) and his terrorism-bearing war, take us again to our natural place in Europe, don't tell us lies and please don't screw it up or you'll pay it in the next elections". If they don't comply, people is going to reclaim their votes. Not a comfortable position, I'm afraid. This isn't a "free-handed, do what you want" Government. They have won with a clear popular pressure and expectative. The first of them, Spanish occupation troops out of Iraq before July 1st, period.

  
  
  

  Has Al-Qaeda voted in these elections? Yes, obviously yes. How could I, a voter, stop thinking in my killed and maimed people, young students, hard-working fathers and mothers, pretty college girls, fragile elders and even babies? Hey, they're my people. As a citizen, I have an obligation to them. But let me tell you that I honestly think that we voted not guided by fear, but guided by anger. In the critical hours after the attack, Aznar's Government confronted and bipolarized the Spanish people lying and manipulating even when the truth was alreday obvious for millions. This caused an automatic reaction in the low and middle classes thinking "they make wars against our opinion, then it's our blood who pays them, and furthermore they're lying us and insulting our deads and our intelligence". Not a good cocktail for a Government seeking re-election, I'm afraid. The result has been obvious. I think that if they had told the truth, they would have lost votes, but perhaps won the elections by a scarce majority. When they decided to lie the impossible, they committed suicide.

  
  
  

  Sorry for my English if it sounds a bit strange, I can't practice it often.

  
  
  

  With my best wishes of peace, freedom and (real) democracy to everyone, from Spain the Brave.
  
  

  
  
  

• 83 - shivaman

  Sep 08, 2004 at 3:41 am

  Islam is a sickness that if we don't do something about it (grind it into the ground)we will be responsible for all the death it will cause!
  I whish the USA would comb all the middle east and kill this monster!