I don’t know why the Spanish voted the way they did, but I have my suspicions.
Regardless- withdrawing from Iraq now, when the Iraqi people need international support the most, is cowardly, craven, immoral, and a sign of weak and feckless leaders. Period.
And, btw- while the loony left continues to assert falsely that there is no relationship between the war on terror and Iraq, only a fool would fail to recognize that ground zero in the war on terror is Iraq, so spare me the piddling remarks such as ‘Zapatero really wants to be serious about the war on terror.’
Steve
Invading Iraq preemptively was the best decision the Al Queida recruiters could’ve hoped for.
Bush poured Gasoline on a Fire, and the Spanish were burned. Of course, conservatives like you are upset by the Spanish vote–after all the Bush campaign strategy is based on the belief that inciting fear of future terrorist attacks will lead voters to choose Bush.
Boy, I sure would be upset if I sent money to the RNC only to discover their strategy was counterproductive.
John Cole
Thanks for sharing the kool-aid. Is it hard to be so historically ignorant about Al Qaeda’s long term strategy regarding Spain? Just curious, you know.
When you are done having spasms, go do a googlesearch for Moor, Andalusia, Muslim, Osama bin Laden. Have fun!
ebradlee10
John,
I don’t profess to know the first thing about the political situation in Spain, but wasn’t the majority of the population against getting involved with Iraq? And, just for a moment supposing that’s true, doesn’t that mean the new leadership is obeying the will of the people?
Finally, isn’t this show of democracy in Spain actually what our country is fighting for in Iraq and not cowardly, craven & immoral?
Respectfully,
Brad
Joshua Price
Every country that has tried to appeased the terrorists have been bombed. Enough said.
M. Scott Eiland
“Finally, isn’t this show of democracy in Spain actually what our country is fighting for in Iraq and not cowardly, craven & immoral?”
And if 50.1% of Spain’s voters had voted to loot, kill, and eat the other 49.9%, would our love of democracy compel us to applaud that, too? A cowardly and immoral action undertaken in accordance with a democratic vote is still a cowardly and immoral action–it’s just one with more fingerprints on it.
ebradlee10
It sounds as though it’s cowardly and immoral only because the Spaniards aren’t toeing the company line.
Mark L
Spain’s action is cowardly and immoral because appeasing terrorists and cutting out on your commitments to fight evil is cowardly and immoral.
Or do you think that appeasing terrorists and refusing to fight evil is is brave and virtuous?
That the US position is to fight terror is immaterial to the morality of the position. If the US did a cut-and-run (which it just might do if John “Imaginary Friends” Kerry is elected President), that would be just as cowardly and immoral as if Spain does it. If appeasing evil is now the company line, then the company line is cowardly and immoral.
ebradlee10
Again, Spain is appeasing their citizens, not terrorism. They didn’t want to be there.
I still don’t know why Iraq and Terrorism seem to be interchangeable. There was no terrorist activity in Iraq until we showed up. In fact, you could argue that the Iraq War has weakened the fight on terrorism.
We had broad support in Afghanistan and much less in Iraq.
Why do you think that is?
Eric Sivula
Because most of Europe had deals with Saddam and the dictators in most Muslim countries liked the bastard?
As for ‘no terrorist activity in Iraq’, then why was Saddam giving safe haven to terrorists and sending cash to homicide bombers in Gaza and West Bank?
cthulhu
They’re appeasing the terrorists because they are not doing a “reduction in personnel,” they are not “redeploying different forces,” they are not “exploring their options,” they are not “pursuing alternative means,” and they are not “taking deliberate steps toward re-engagement.” There are no end of ways they could have pulled out without harming the interests of their comrades-in-arms, their allies, and their friends.
Instead, within three days of getting a bloody nose, they are folding their tents and stealing away. With less than 120 days notice, they are abandoning the flank they had undertaken to hold.
War has different rules than politics. When deployed, any part of an army that decides not to live up to its obligations endangers the entire force, as well as the cause. By comparison, political deals that last past sundown are considered longstanding positions.
Zapatero, in order to score points with a political base that already supported him, has practically guaranteed that people will die — either in copycat “electioneering” or in renewed violence in the Middle East. He has exchanged human lives for brownie points, for silly words that get him applause.
If he had quietly informed the coalition that sometime in September he intended to exchange the 1,400 Spanish troops in Iraq for 500 Spanish DUI’s working off their hours of community service, it would be regrettable — but understandable.
Since he instead decided to make a recruiting commercial for Al Qaeda and promote himself as an example of “in your face” disdain for his own armed forces, I can only feel contempt. My heart grieves for the people of Spain and the egotistical ideologue they are now stuck with.
Mark L
The billions in bribe money that Saddam was doling out to France, Germany, Russia, the UN, and indirectly Canada, might — just possibly might — have colored those nation’s attitude towards American intervention in Iraq.
I mean the US killed the goose that was laying the golden eggs for those politicians.
The antiwar movement was well content to exchange blood for oil so long as it was the blood of the common Iraqi and the oil going to them.
Appeasing terrorist out of fear is bad, but appeasing them because you are willing to accept bribes from them is the definition of evil.
Or do you disagree ebradlee10? Do you feel that France and Germany were being virtuous by sucking the blood out of the common Iraqi by accepting Saddam’s bribe money? If so, explain how.
russ
edbradlee’s inane ignorance knows no bounds and has an ego that doesn’t know the feelings of embarrasment after making asinine statements…
I wonder if the words of Steve Denbeste of the USS Cluess blog would have an impact on this individual?
(http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2004/03/Marchingontheirknees.shtml)
“The people of Spain marched in the streets on Friday.
Then they crawled on their knees into their voting booths on Sunday”
How about the observations of Victor Davis Hanson on the costs of appeasement?
(http://victorhanson.com/Articles/Private%20Papers/Blame_whom.html)
Victor Davis Hanson
Let me get this straight. Two-and-a-half years after September 11, on a similar eleventh day of the month, 911 days following 9-11, and on the eve of Spanish elections, Al Qaeda or its epigones blows up 200 and wounds 1,400 Spaniards. This horrific attack follows chaotic months when Turks were similarly butchered (who opposed the Iraq War), Saudis were targeted (who opposed the Iraqi war), Moroccans were blown apart (who opposed the Iraqi war) and French periodically threatened (who opposed the Iraqi War).
And the response? If we were looking for Churchill to step from the rubble, we got instead Daladier. The Spanish electorate immediately and overwhelmingly connected the horror with its present conservative government
ebradlee10
Bribe money? Try legitimate business. I would love to see proof (links or otherwise) any bribe money exchanged hands BESIDES some ruminations/theorizing from a blooger holed up for 18 hours a day.
The only blood in this conflict is on the hands of:
Rove
Bush
Powell
Rummy
Cheney
Wolfowitz
“The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.”
– Paul Wolfowitz, quoted by Tim Russert on ‘Meet The Press, NBC, 06-01-0
Thanks for the links Rusty. I’ll look at those. But take it easy on the name calling. I’m involved in the same thing you are, political discourse or, if you like, OPINION.
ape
oh my god: “only a fool would fail to recognize that ground zero in the war on terror is Iraq”.
well yes. the ‘loony left’ may intend it to be understood that “there is no relationship between the war on terror and Iraq” in the sense that the rationale for the war cannot legitimately have been the fight against Islamist terror and those responsible for 9/11. (it may have been some other legitimate cause).
the war has caused the terror. perhaps the terror may have also caused the war. although it is ordinary for effects to succeed causes.
Saddam’s secular totalitarianism was doing a very good job of keeping islamists quiet. this could be measured: in terms of ‘Islamist terror incidents per 10,000 Muslims’ or some such measure, you’d probably find Iraq was doing as well as anywhere in the world.
on an unrelated point: why shouldn’t kerry say foreign leaders prefer him when its obviously true? what do you think the populations of the UK/ Germany/ Spain/ France etc.. think of Bush and Republicans? do they perceive a unilateralist approach? do celebrate the right’s descriptionof them as ‘surrender monkeys’ etc..?
Foreign leaders know they need to be on good terms with the US, both in the national interest and, to some extent, to be associated with american power. but being on good terms with the Bush administration will never be good in the polls.
how many foreign leaders (other than Saddam) are queuing to have their photo taken with Rumsfeld & Cheney? how popular do you think these people are? what do you think the reaction was to Bush’s attempt to appoint Kissinger?
compare this with when Clinton visited Birmingham: they still use him in their promotional materials.
Mark L.
“I would love to see proof (links or otherwise) any bribe money exchanged hands BESIDES some ruminations/theorizing from a blooger holed up for 18 hours a day.”
Does William Safire qualify as someone besides a blogger?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/17/opinion/17SAFI.html
If not you might try the NY Times archives. They broke a big story on this over the weekend.
But, I forgot. No one has been *convicted* of anything in a court. So there is no “proof”.
(Tell me something. How do you get around with your fingers simultaneously in your ears and your hands over your eyes? For that matter, how do you manage both at the same time?)
Mito
“Every country that has tried to appeased the terrorists have been bombed. Enough said.”
There’s a remark that’s breathtaking in its ignorance. Anyone would think Bush invented how to deal with terrorists, that there haven’t been terrorists for thousands of years.
I think Spain would know a lot more about the subject with ETA than Bush would. You could also argue that the IRA were appeased when they joined in the government of Northern Ireland.
The simple fact is people have been appeasing terrorists and claiming not to negotiate with them throughout history. Sometimes one approach works, sometimes the other.
This of course is how Bush works. Something old happens (a terrorist attack like 9/11). Bush says everything is different now (nothing is different, there have been terrorist attacks throughout history). Bush has the genius to invent a new way to fight terrorism (exactly the same as the right has always done it is South America for example). Then he says only his way works, and appeasement never does (which historically is complete rubbish). Only he can divine the way to make his new invented terrorism approach work (which is just the same as the old ways). The left doesn’t “get” his invention and will mess it up unless people follow him blindly (because it’s not his idea anyway)
It’s all just silly. Bush hasn’t had one original idea on terrorism so far.
CadillaqJaq
It appears that Mito assumes that all terrorists are alike with the same motives and objectives… laughable.
C/W singer-song writer Hoyt Axton once wrote: “You work your fingers to the bone and what do you get? Boney fingers…”
That works for appeasing terrorists too: the more you appease them, the more there are to appease. We have two choices, fight them or succumb. Personally, there is but one choice.
Tman
Jeebus, would someone please kill the “Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror” meme already? It’s making me absolutely sick.
Ebradlee, Mito, the rest, start here and work your way onward….and put that stupid meme to rest. Iraq was a BIG part of the war on terror- ignoring the facts doesn’t make them go away.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/25/us.iraq.alqaeda/
http://www.techcentralstation.com/092503F.html
Flagwaver
A few questions for ebradlee, mito, et al:
1. Do you believe OBL is happy or unhappy about the Spanish election results, and the decision by the new PM to summarily withdraw troops from Iraq?
2. Do you believe OBL is happy or unhappy about Moammar Qadafi’s decision to abandon development of WMD (which Qadafi publicly and explicitly attributed to our campaign in Iraq)?
3. Do you believe OBL would prefer Bush to be re-elected, or Kerry to be elected?
4. Which do you believe is more significant as a measure of our success in Iraq – the Spanish withdrawal and apparent (yes, I admit it) European public disapproval, or the recent poll in Iraq that shows that the average Iraqi citizen feels BETTER OFF now than under Saddam?
and, last but not least:
5. In light of the recent German court ACQUITTAL of a known 9/11 plotter, do you believe that OBL would prefer Kerry’s “law enforcement” approach to terror, or W’s military approach?
Just askin,’ is all.
JKC
And had Aznar not lied about ETA’s involvement in the bombings, the PP might still be in power.
There’s a lesson in there I suspect that the Bush League should learn from, but won’t.
Flagwaver
Why is it, JKC, that whenever a right-of-center politician says something that later proves to be untrue, “HE LIED,” but when a left-of-center politician says something that was DEMONSTRABLY and KNOWINGLY untrue when he said it, it’s all “Move along, nothing to see here?” Just askin,’ is all.
Bush lied? Then so did Clinton, Albright, the U.N., Hans Blix and the rest of the cretins you seem to hold in such high regard. But, as with John “I voted to punish Cuba” Kerry and Billy Zipperpants, the lies of the Left are all OK, since they are “the good guys.”
Politicians lie, but not EVERY statement by a politician, not even every statement that subsequently proves untrue, is a lie. People, even political leaders, actually make honest mistakes. Billy Zipperpants even made a few – although most of his “misstatements” were out-and-out lies. But that’s OK, isn’t it?
HH
JKC seems to go to the Al Franken school of rhetoric (whatever my rival says that is later shown to be incorrect is always a lie).
JKC
Well, perhaps flagwaver and HH can enlighten me: what evidence do you have that pointed to ETA as the source of the Spanish bombs? Try reading the article I linked to: the PP and Aznar blamed ETA before they had ANY facts. (People with a slightly longer-than-normal attention span might recall that the first reaction to the Oklahoma City bombing was to look for the Middle East terrorists responsible. Oops…)
So Aznar either lied about the ETA connection or leaped to an incorrect conclusion for the sake of… I dunno. Political expediency? An understandable urge to assign blame?
Whatever the motivation, he and the PP paid a political price. If the deception was unintentional (a distinct possibility), then that’s unfortunate.
Flagwaver
JKC, I said NOTHING about Aznar’s handling of the press following the bombing. Did he jump to a politically advantageous conclusion? Apparently. And, yes, he paid for it. So what?
As far as the underlying point, regarding appeasement, the ONLY thing needs to be said has been said before:
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
wallster
Invading Iraq in the first place was probably the most cowardly, craven, immoral, and sign of a weak and feckless leader. Period.
Any if Iraq is “ground zero in the war on terror”, it is solely because of our invasion. Another period.
It amazes me how ignorant right wingers can be – you do realize we caused this attack, don’t you? The blood of 200 innocent Spaniards is on the hands of GWB and ignorant asshat warbloggers like John Cole.
Flagwaver
Well, my, my, my. Isn’t it nice that us poor, ignorant right wingers have the brilliance of folks like Wallster to tell us how stupid we are.
So, just out of curiosity, Wallster, what is the “informed, nuanced, multilateral, Democratic” response to 9/11, Afghanistan, 17 ignored UN resolutions, Saddam’s state sponsorship of terrorism, Libya’s, Syria’s and Iraq’s WMD programs, etc.? Oh, yeah, that’s right . . . it’s a “law enforcement issue.”
FOAD, you asshatted troll.
Mito
“It appears that Mito assumes that all terrorists are alike with the same motives and objectives… laughable.”
That’s pretty incoherent. The point I was making is that all aspects of terrorism have happened before somewhere, and all different approaches have been tried before. There is this meme that somehow Bush is doing something new or untried, but it’s not true.
This idea that appeasement doesn’t work is rubbish. You only have to look at Israel for example. The government alternated between appeasement (Labor and Perez) and trying to crush the Palestinians (Sharon).
So this whole idea that Bush has new ideas on terrorism is ludicrous. All he’s done is picked one side and one philosophy of dealing with it, like Pinochet, Somoza, Sharon, John Major (England), and Aznar (Spain) did.
The historical record is that it doesn’t work. Appeasement has mixed success, for example the Oslo Accords with Labor were successful in appeasing the Palestinians to some degree. Clinton came close to makeing peace in Israel with appeasement. The IRA disarmed because of appeasement, solving the whole thing. Somoza didn’t do so well with his non appeasement.
There’s nothing at all new in the war on terror. You can look at the history and see that appeasement sometimes works and sometimes attacking the terrorists works. Bush can never beat Al Quaeda because he’s not trying to make peace with them.
In Spain ETA will be back. The only way to solve that problem is to give the Basque some kind of autonomy.
The US set up and prop up dictatorships throughout the Middle East, and that’s what created Al Quaeda. They are afraid of more religious countries like Iran there and that’s why they try to suppress terrorist groups there.
Flagwaver
Yo, Mito,
You give examples, and then you don’t LOOK at them.
First, I’ve never heard anyone say that W’s approach to the WoT is “new.” Why does it have to be? What is “new” about W, if anything, is that (i) he has made it stated, public national policy, and (ii) he is PURSUING that policy.
You are right in one respect – historically, governments have been all over the map about terrorism. Some say they won’t negotiate, then they do. Others propose “dialogue,” then deliver bombs (read, “Billy Zipperpants”).
But, as for your half-assed examples of how appeasement has “worked,” let me ask you a question – give me ONE concrete instance of a meaningful concession that the PLO made AND ACTUALLY HONORED, which was gained as a result of concessions/appeasement on the Israeli side? Can’t think of one? That’s because THERE AREN’T ANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Basically, the best way to “negotiate” with a terrorist is to kill the sonofabitch.
Appeasement is for idiots.
Mito
“But, as for your half-assed examples of how appeasement has “worked,” let me ask you a question – give me ONE concrete instance of a meaningful concession that the PLO made AND ACTUALLY HONORED, which was gained as a result of concessions/appeasement on the Israeli side? Can’t think of one? That’s because THERE AREN’T ANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Basically, the best way to “negotiate” with a terrorist is to kill the sonofabitch.”
Britain tried killing the “sons of bitches” i.e. the IRA and it didn’t work. Then they appeased them by giving Northern Ireland autonomy and it did work.
people have been negitating with the PLO for decades. At one stage Europe airline companies paid insurance premiums to the PLO so they wouldn’t hijack their planes.
The Jackal and other terrorist groups like Bader Meinhof were left alone in Europe as an appeasement, which mostly prevented terrorist attacks there. If they were accidentally captured they were usually quietly released. For eample the bppk below by Yallop:
To the ends of the Earth
The PLO at one stage gave up the destruction of Israel in their charter as a result of negotiation, there are plenty of other examples.
The point you are making is wrong. Governments have tried as you say just about everything with terrorists over the centuries, sometimes it works. Trying to wipe them out almost never works because terrorism usually arises from a grievance and there are usually people willing to give their lives for that grievance.
So in virtually every case of terrorism the supply of followers has been essentially unlimited.
The death squads throughout South America (often trained in the US) never wiped out any terrorism. Bush’s ideas are just his Poppy’s tricks when he was head of the CIA. They didn’t work then and they aren’t working now.
Bush’s foreign policy is wrong because his world view is wrong. Basically he’s saying that only the right wing understands how to combat terrorism which is totally untrue historically. Often the right creates terrorism by ripping off the locals.
I suppose there are terrorists in Niger people like Cheney find so bad. Cheney may soon be under indictment for bribing the government of Niger to give a better deal to Halliburton, propping up a dictatorship and letting the rest of the country starve. That’s often how terrorism starts, by a section of the population feeling they are being ripped off.
flagwaver
Jeebus, do you loonies actually READ or LISTEN TO the crap that you spout??????
Mito:
“Britain tried killing the “sons of bitches” i.e. the IRA and it didn’t work. Then they appeased them by giving Northern Ireland autonomy and it did work.”
So, like, there’s no violence in Northern Ireland, eh? And the IRA has disbanded, right? Yes, the violence has LESSENED – but the IRA, particularly the more radical factions thereof, HATE the “settlement,” and have vowed to undermine it.
“The Jackal and other terrorist groups like Bader Meinhof were left alone in Europe as an appeasement, which MOSTLY (emphasis mine) prevented terrorist attacks there. If they were accidentally captured they were usually quietly released.”
And we all KNOW how well that worked, don’t we? “MOSTLY prevented”???? How many bombs or hijackings are “too many” for you? Is a bombing a week OK? How about one a month? So you tell the families of the victims of those bombings, “Hey, we’ve budgeted 10 dead a month as being a fair price for appeasement, and this year, we’re actually ahead of budget!” Jeebus, what an unethical fuckwad you are!!
“The PLO at one stage gave up the destruction of Israel in their charter as a result of negotiation, there are plenty of other examples.”
Absolutely FALSE! They did NOT give up destruction of Israel, in their charter or anywhere else. They weasel-worded it, to try to provide cover to the EUnuchs, but they retained, in their charter, language asserting Palestinian rights to “all of historic Palestine.” Besides which, I posited TWO conditions – that they made a concession AND ACTUALLY HONORED IT.
“That’s often how terrorism starts, by a section of the population feeling they are being ripped off.”
Oh, like the fact that the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were upper middle to upper class Saudis from families who supported them in a fashion far above what is enjoyed by the average Saudi citizen? Who “ripped off” OBL of his hundreds of millions of dollars? That “root cause” argument is SUCH a crock of shit, I can’t believe anyone can even propose it with a straight face.
Only a leftist, moral-relativist, multiculturalist idiotarian could argue, with a straight face, the virtues of appeasement. Peddle your shit somewhere else, we ain’t buyin.’
Mito
You don’t seem to have any idea on what is going on in Ireland. The IRA joined the government in election as Sinn Fein. There are no more bombings, etc. You just don’t want to admit it because the example shows your argument for the nonsense it is.
That’s the fundamental problem with your loony argument, you don’t have any real evidence not negotiating with terrorists is the right things to do. You also have to pretend most of history doesn’t exist, where plenty of times people have negotiated successfully. It happens all the times.
Your argument is simply partisan masquerading as the only solution. Typically right wing governments confront terrorists and left wing governments negotiate with them. A combination of the two approaches usually works.
As to you weasel word references to the PLO why not just admit you were wrong? They followed through on it, they haven’t destroyed Israel. Your whole argument is silly and delusional.
The problem is you support an idiot like Bush who comes out with stupid ideas, and then you make yourself look like a fool for parroting them. Why don’t you elect someone that’s not an idiot for president? Surely there must be someone in the Republican party who’s not a crook, not stupid, not a liar, etc.
I’m not a left winger, I’m a conservative. You however are not a conservative, you support a liar and a crook which is nothing to do with conservative values. All people like you do is sell out conservative values and claim Enron and imperialism represents the new right wing values. You disgust me.
Flagwaver
Mito, keep on keepin’ on. Don’t let any facts sway you in the face of higher truth.
The Sinn Fein joined the government? Big fuckin’ news, numbnuts. THe Sinn Fein is the political wing of the IRA, and has been electing MP’s for decades. As for the IRA giving up “The Struggle,” rather than preaching to me, why don’t you do a little research. Here, I’ll start you off:
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/bt/Qnireland-ira-weapons.RvCm_DOL.html
Mito:
“This idea that appeasement doesn’t work is rubbish. You only have to look at Israel for example. The government alternated between appeasement (Labor and Perez) and trying to crush the Palestinians (Sharon).”
And which course of action has accomplished more? Again, I challenge you: Name ONE meaningful concession that the Palis have offered AND HONORED as a result of appeasement.
As for the Palis, I was NOT wrong – go read the PA charter. It still contains language expressly stating it as a goal of the organization to assert Pali jurisdiction over “all of historic Palestine” (which, of course, never existed, but, like you, they don’t let facts stand in their way).
More Mito:
” You also have to pretend most of history doesn’t exist, where plenty of times people have negotiated successfully. It happens all the times.”
Yeah, so name ONE. Go ahead. Name ONE historical instance where appeasement achieved a long term positive result. . . . . I hear crickets chirping, but no response.
Mito, you are both a coward and a fool, and it is only due to the existence of brainless, spineless shits like yourself that the Democratic party exists.
Manuel Garc
To those who delude themselves into believing we Spaniards are cowards:
Let me state once and for all that we as a country NEVER supported the attack on Iraq, still Mr Aznar’s government chose to ignore the citizens’ opinion and decided to support Mr Bush’s best interest, and this is the main reason why Mr Aznar’s party was ousted. Cowards ? We have been suffering terrorism for decades in our own land, we know what it is, we have lost many lives to it and we freakin’ know how to deal with it. Those ignorants who dare to attribute to cowardice what has been a BRAVE act of democratic spirit have certainly no right to judge us. We have never wanted our soldiers in Iraq, because we know that “war” had nothing to do with fighting against terrorism, and this is why they are coming home.
Mito
Let me point out how I started this exchange. I said that historically governments have used a combination of appeasement and cracking down (carrot and stick) to deal with terrorists. As you admitted yourself they have been “all over the map” throughout history in dealing with them.
The Palestinians and Hamas have cease fires all the time with the Israelis. They make truces as part of negotiations and when they break down they go back to terrorism. During these truces they honor them for the most part.
The way you want to handle terrorism had been tried over and over, particularly in Israel and doesn’t work in isolation. You think Sharon has been successful again the PLO, Hamas, and all the other palestinian terrorist organisations? It’s absurd, all they’ve done is create more attacks and less security.
You are trying to make an impossible point, that appeasement doesn’t work because the other side can’t be trusted. That throws out the whole history of diplomacy including what Bush does.
If the Israelis gave the Palestinians the full West Bank and Gaza there’s a good chance the whole conflict would be over. Clinton came very close to making a peace deal on those terms and many people in Israel and among the Palestinians are willing to take that deal.
According to you that would be appeasement and shouldn’t be done. You seem to think if you keep pounding away at the Palestinians they’ll just turn into pacifists. Even Sharon doesn’t believe what you do.
The only way that conflict will end is how the Ireland conflict ended, to find a deal that both sides will accept. Israel wants to hang onto as much of the West Bank as possible because of Greater Israel aspirations. It’s quite similar to Britain trying to hang onto Northern Ireland.
The main sticking point last time with the Palestinians was the right of return of Palestinians to Israel which is unacceptable to the Israelis. They were very close to a deal and that got there by a combination of carrot AND stick, not just stick alone.
It’s simply absurd to look at that conflict and Ireland and say that appeasement never worked because the terrorists never kept any promises. The IRA had plenty of truces as well in negotiations. What they never agreed to was not getting what they wanted.
The Basque situation is about the same thing, an ethinc group that has lived in an area for centuries, even thousands of years, considered it their homeland, and then found themselves part of another country. Some people will always find this unacceptable, and so some there will fight forever until they get a Basque homeland. The problem is Spain doesn’t want to give away part of its teritory.
Chechnya is the same. Appeasing them would be giving them a sufficient amount of autonomy, by Putin is trying your idea of killing enough of them to make them give up on that. They only want want the rest of the CIS got in the break up of the USSR, and independant state. Your system hasn’t worked there either. Eventually appeasement will solve that one in combination (carrot and stick in the right proportion)
So what about China and Tibet? From your perspective Tibet is a part of China and any resistence to that there should be crushed. By your reasoning China should invade Taiwan and crush all those terrorists who refuse to join Communist China. They try and appease Taiwan by offering autonomy which is wrong according to you.
The US was formed by terrorists who had no legal right to break away from Britain. They tried to crush the rebellion and appeased it in the end by making deals.
Crushing Al Qaeda hasn’t worked so far, they seem to be able to make attacks regularly at will. They haven’t been able to do this in the US or perhaps they haven’t wanted to since 9/11. If they did it would be very easy to do. In a recent Popular Science it showed how to make e-bombs which would destroy every electrical appliance in a city for $500 each. They could set one off in each city and take the US back to the stone age for less than the cost of an SUV.
People don’t want to appease Al Quaeda because they want revenge for what they did. A lot of revenge though has already been done. They can’t be wiped out, already the Taliban is controlling large parts of Afghanistan again.
The Saudis and Bush already appeased them by taking the troops out of Saudi Arabia, one of their key demands. Since they hated Saddam I doubt the Iraq invasion upset them. The only way to beat Al Qaeda is to find out what they want, give them enough of it to take away enough of their motivation, and police them well enough to avoid attacks in the future.
That’s the only successful way historically to deal with terrorists and it’s the only one that will work now. Bush is already doing this anyway, maybe you can convince Kerry to try it your way.
You can hide from the facts of history with your rhetoric but the facts are governments need to be practical and do things that work, not things that sound good in a speech.
Norah
You don’t know why the Spanish voted as they did? I’ll tell you. They fired a government that superceded their wishes and depleted their troop strength in Iraq, thus failing to protect them from the real terror at home.
77% of Spanish voters went to the polls the day after the bombing in Madrid. Think about that for a second. That’s not typical voter apathy….these people were seriously pissed off. And you call them cowardly? Hell no. Refusing to halt democracy for the terrorists is as brave as anything I ever heard of.
I’ll say this again. The governing party did not protect the Spanish public from terrorism. What would you do with someone who utterly failed to do his job? Promote him?
No, wait….re-elect him!