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Massacre in Madrid: ETA blamed.

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20:51 / 14.03.04

Election Results...

The Socialist Party declared victory with 79 percent of the votes counted, as results showed it winning 164 seats in the 350-member parliament and the ruling Popular Party taking 147. The latter had 183 seats in the outgoing legislature.

Turnout was high at 76 percent. Many voters said Thursday's bombings, which killed 200 people and wounded 1,500, was a decisive factor, along with the government's much-criticized handling of the initial investigation. The electorate of 34.5 million included about 1.9 million mostly young voters added to the rolls since the 2000 general election.

21:14 / 14.03.04

For all us antiwar types, this has to be good news

Is it though? Will the socialists give Bush and his allies a cold shoulder on their war? If the new regieme show any lessening in their support to Bush and his allies does this not give succor to Al Quaeda (who may or may not be behind thursdays terrorist attack)?

We appear to be living in interesting times as the old curse goes.

Grand Panjandrum of the Pointless

21:22 / 14.03.04

The election result is certainly good for the anti-war cause, as are the implications of this attack in general. It is a concrete 'told you so' for everyone who denied that war on Iraq would exacerbate the terrorist situation. The Islamists would not have attacked Spain if Aznar had not supported Bush. Terrorism is spreading, not being contained.

21:28 / 14.03.04

But is appeasement an acceptable or even practical policy?

08:56 / 15.03.04

When I said that this result is good for the antiwar movement, I meant that it shifts the state of US alliances so as to make (in my view) imperialist actions more difficult. One commentator I heard said that Spain would still be anti terrorism and a friend of the US - just a friend more like France and Germany...

yawn - thing's buddy

12:05 / 15.03.04

it's fairly obvious that a new way of dealing with islamic terrorism will have to formulated.
Not 'appeasement' but certainly a less confrontational approach than has been adopted by blair/bush.
Spain and its people may well be at the forefront of this new attitude,

he said, without beleiving a word of it.

11:24 / 16.03.04

I'm pretty sure the dominant reason for the election result is as I suggested above--how, not whether, to fighting terrorism. Europe does need a unified policy, but it doesn't have to be Bush's (and Blair's) "permanent war" with its increased surveillance, military tribunals and special camps.

Spain already has terrorists--the ETA--and they've still got a democracy, pretty much. Ditto for the UK. ETA actually hold a clue as to how best to fight terrorism: treat is as organized crime, only with a political edge. Address the politics as best you can, and prosecute the crime as best you can. The money's a bit harder to follow, but I'm sure it can be done. Most countries have laws against organized crime. Adjusting existing laws them to fit terrorism is better than writing new ones or inventing new legal categories and cowing the public into accepting them.

sdv (non-human)

21:30 / 16.03.04

A touch of history might be useful here. The history of terrorism is long and not always dreadful, sometimes it is even dare I say it amusing. (The story of the Russian secret service agent - working undercover as an anarchist terroist who murdered his own boss has to make one smile, a few weeks later he tried to blow up the Czar (I believe)).

This is merely another set of terrorist actions that should be placed in the context of all the other terrorist actions that we have lived through. At the moment This particular sub-group of Post-Modern Islamic fundamentalist terrorists has been 'merely' a good excuse for the growing militarisation of the empire. It is this which must be resisted terrorism itself is not the issue. Beyond this it's worth placing the islamic terrorists in context - without doing any research I can name: te italian neo-fascists who blew up Bologna railway station: the British Fascist bombing campaign of the late 70s and early 80s: our old friends the IRA: ETA: The unspeakable Christian Children of Uganda: he pro-life bombers of the USA... I could go on: terrorism has always been with us and always will be:

I look forward to Bin-Laden being president of Saudi-Arabia (laughs).

s

Tryphena Absent

12:37 / 17.03.04

I was watching Diane Abbott on a news programme last week and she spent a lot of time emphasising the ridiculous notion of lumping all of these instances of terrorism under one heading and that of course is why this is 'merely' a good excuse for the growing militarisation of the empire. You can't reduce separate problems until they all fall under one heading, it's absurd, it simply means you're not tackling the problems.

This thread feels like we're all falling prey to this notion of the 'war against terror' because we're referring to terrorism and not the specifics of the situation. We don't actually need a new way of dealing with Islamic terror, we need to attack the cause because something exists to make these terrorists feel that they need to explode all of us. That's not a new way of dealing and more to the point the effect (the bombs) will always manage to kill people and that means we need to go further back... the only reason half the population of London wasn't killed in the '70s and '80s was the IRA phoning the police to tell them there was a bomb and thus mass evacuation (and disruption).

14:38 / 17.03.04

Anna, I agree. There are a variety of terror groups, and where *do* "terrorists" end and "freedom fighters" begin? And who says?

Underfire is a mailing list whose members--mostly academics--held a 6-week conference (see "summaries") over terrorism. I thought there were a lot of good ideas in it. Wishful thinking and post-modernist bafflegab were held to a minimum (or my tolerance for them have gone up).

One idea I wish had gotten more attention was the one likening many terrorist organizations to mafia, filling in gaps left by the governments. A *very* interesting idea was that rebel groups have to succeed quickly or else they degenerate into nationalist mafias or terror groups.

19:13 / 19.03.04

as an offshoot, why was this attack only report as an "and also" a little bit after the event in relation ? And why a masonic temple in particular?

http://www.msnbcntv.com/news/261218.asp?cp1=1

21:40 / 19.03.04

I fear that they will go for Rome 11 April. It's a chatholic "event" by that time. And Italy was pro-war as well.

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