Madrid Bombings And Spains Support In Iraq

[Georgie-Porgie]

Boon Mee is the real deal, and if it weren't for all the left-wing wackos on here, he would probably be attacking me for being a hippie/pansy!

See, I knew that I was next

Boon Mee, give me a break.

My father and mother were from Massachusetts.

I was raised a Catholic.

Kennedy was charming as ######.

I was a child when he was assassinated.

He screwed Marilyn Monroe.

He would have got us out of Vietnam ( )

He screwed Marilyn Monroe.

I did get laid more during the Reagan years however!

[the gentleman]

Sorry but you cannot compare the level of personal intrusion available to the FBI today with the loss of some civil rights in WWII. And, I suppose the Japanese-American interned in camps during the war might have something to argue with you about that.

sbk, you are not the sort of person who deserves for me to jump all over you in my normal manner, but you are sort of asking for it with these particular posts.

Thats how it starts Sbk

[Boon Mee]

Boon Mee is the real deal, and if it weren't for all the left-wing wackos on here, he would probably be attacking me for being a hippie/pansy!

See, I knew that I was next

Boon Mee, give me a break.

My father and mother were from Massachusetts.

I was raised a Catholic.

Kennedy was charming as ######.

I was a child when he was assassinated.

He screwed Marilyn Monroe.

He would have got us out of Vietnam ( )

He screwed Marilyn Monroe.

I did get laid more during the Reagan years however!

Georgie,

No offense meant, Pardner!

It probably boils down to parental influences here as well as I grew up in Orange Co., Calif. where Tricky Dick was The Man at the time. Also, I come from a long line of WASPs. Nixon opened China to the West but unfortunately, his "dark side" got him.

Kennedy probably would have done a better job of extracating us from Vietnam than LBJ but we'll never know. But, I do respect the guy for getting Marilyn Monroe in the sack!

[Membrane]

Here's an interesting article about Spain giving in to the terrorists, further supporting my previous posts. From Yahoo:

U.S. Official: Spain Gave in to Threats

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON - Spain gave in to threats and voted to "appease terrorists" in the election Sunday that turned out a top U.S. ally in the counterterror war, the top Republican in Congress said Wednesday.

The comments by House Speaker Rep. Dennis Hastert strongly contrast with those of President Bush (news - web sites), who has sidestepped the question of whether the election results could encourage terrorists.

Meanwhile, a top Bush administration official said the Spanish government was defeated in national elections in part because it initially held Basque separatists accountable for last week's train bombings and "didn't get what information did exist out to the public."

Speaking to Capitol Hill reporters on another subject, Hastert, R-Ill., called Spain "a nation who succumbed ... to threats of terrorism, changed their government."

Asked if he was referring to Spain, he said: "Well I'm saying, they changed their government because of the perception of threat."

"Here's a country who stood against terrorism and had a huge terrorist act within their country and they chose to change their government and to in a sense appease terrorists," Hastert said.

By comparison, when Bush was asked Tuesday whether the vote gave terrorists reason to believe that they can influence elections and policy, he replied: "I think terrorists will kill innocent life in order to try to get the world to cower. I think these are cold-blooded killers."

Meanwhile Wednesday, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he thought the vote "was a protest by the people against the handling of the terrorist event by the sitting government of Spain."

"Probably part of it" was that the defeated conservative government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar — a key U.S. ally — initially held Basque separatists accountable and "didn't get what information did exist out to the public," Armitage said in an interview on Philadelphia radio station WPHT.

After initially pointing the finger at Basque separatists, the Spanish government has since said it is investigating a top suspect's possible links to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

In two other interviews, as well, Armitage referred to what he described as the former government's "mishandling" of the terror attack, the bloodiest in Spain's history with 201 people dead.

Still, the State Department's No. 2 official praised Aznar, who supported the U.S. war in Iraq (news - web sites) despite the opposition of most Spaniards, as being committed in principle to going after terrorists. "We'll have to give the new prime minister some time to get his sea legs and see how he comes out on things," Armitage said.

On Wednesday in Madrid, Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodrigues Zapatero renewed a pledge to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. He called the U.S.-led occupation a "fiasco."

Zapatero also said Spanish police agencies had failed to prevent the bombings despite knowing the whereabouts and potential danger of a top suspect and his alleged links with al-Qaida, the terror network believed to have been instrumental in the bombings last Thursday.

A senior U.S. official said Armitage's remarks reflected widespread criticism within the Bush administration of the Aznar government as pointing an accusing finger at Basque separatists, even though evidence was mounting that al-Qaida and not the separatists were involved in the bombing.

The official, who declined to be publicly identified, reinforced what the deputy secretary of state had said in interviews on Tuesday.

[Boon Mee]

Yep, heard there's a boycott now on Spanish Olives. Doesn't have quite the "punch" that boycotting French wine had...

[Georgie-Porgie]

Kennedy probably would have done a better job of extracating us from Vietnam than LBJ but we'll never know. But, I do respect the guy for getting Marilyn Monroe in the sack!

Boon Mee, we have a lot in common; We both get right to the important issues!

[sbk]

In Germany they first came for the Communists,

    and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

    and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

    and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,

    and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me -

    and by that time no one was left to speak up.

                                      -- Pastor Martin Niemöller

sbk, you are not the sort of person who deserves for me to jump all over you in my normal manner, but you are sort of asking for it with these particular posts.

Feel free, since nothing personal was said, and all we are talking about is history, I don't know what you are getting so het up about. You obviously weren't put into internment camps so what's your problem? And ask how many Arab-Americans (or even just turban wearing Americans) how great their lives are first. Ask how many of them are being investigated simply because of their religion.

Lest you forget:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

and the other biggie:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

And finally, for all those people being held without due process in INS jails and Guantanamo Bay:

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

I am not Anti-Bush, I am not Pro-Kerry. I am Pro-Constitution. Perhaps if more Americans took their rights more seriously they would be less inclined to give them away so freely.

[Boon Mee]

In Germany they first came for the Communists,

     and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

     and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

     and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,

     and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me -

     and by that time no one was left to speak up.

                                      -- Pastor Martin Niemöller

sbk, you are not the sort of person who deserves for me to jump all over you in my normal manner, but you are sort of asking for it with these particular posts.

Feel free, since nothing personal was said, and all we are talking about is history, I don't know what you are getting so het up about. You obviously weren't put into internment camps so what's your problem? And ask how many Arab-Americans (or even just turban wearing Americans) how great their lives are first. Ask how many of them are being investigated simply because of their religion.

Lest you forget:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

and the other biggie:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

And finally, for all those people being held without due process in INS jails and Guantanamo Bay:

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

I am not Anti-Bush, I am not Pro-Kerry. I am Pro-Constitution. Perhaps if more Americans took their rights more seriously they would be less inclined to give them away so freely.

SBK~,

Good post & good research but as the point made earlier, during time of war - which we are at right now - certain freedoms are necessarily suspended. The Japanese detention camps were a big mistake but you don't see any Arabs in camps now.

The largest Arab community in the states - Detroit area - enjoys all kinds of latitude w/respect to constitutional freedoms. Some of their money-laundering operations have been shut down but with the open borders we have in the states, something's got to be done!

Take for example that lovely boy, Mohomad Atta and his merry crew of terrorists. If the FBI agent in Minneapolis had been listened to when the first hijacker was discovered taking flying lessons and some in-depth investigations followed - 3k souls would not have perished in the World Trade Center disaster.

But no, under certain constitutional restrictions, we were not allowed to examine the dudes hard drive in time to alert us to their plan to fly planes into tall buildings, the Pentagon and the White House.

Hey, you're living in Thailand where you don't enjoy a fraction of the freedoms you list and you're doing fine, right? So where's the Beef?...

Boon Mee

[Georgie-Porgie]

sbk, you are not the sort of person who deserves for me to jump all over you in my normal manner, but you are sort of asking for it with these particular posts.

Feel free, since nothing personal was said, and all we are talking about is history, I don't know what you are getting so het up about. You obviously weren't put into internment camps so what's your problem? And ask how many Arab-Americans (or even just turban wearing Americans) how great their lives are first. Ask how many of them are being investigated simply because of their religion.

sbk, all your impressive quotes just evade the issue.

We are talking about some freedoms, temporarily, being curtailed during war-time, in order to protect society.

You act like this is something new that George W. cooked up with Donny R. and Joseph Goebbels, but this is a common practice, and always has been.

Lest you forget, the men who wrote that US Constitution, that you keep waving around, were well aware of this necessity, and purposely left lots of room for future Presidents, such as George W. Bush, to operate. That is how Bush was able to get the Patriot Act passed and made into law.

As to what I am "het up" about, it would probably be posts like yours in which writers start raving about issues that have nothing to do with what is being talked about in order to appear to be more 'enlightened' than everyone else, when they are really just more confused.

I guess all that "happiness of Arab-Americans" jive is supposed to show us how sensitive you are, but I'm not impressed.

Anyway, what the personal happiness of Arab-Americans and "turban-wearing" Americans has to do with citizens giving up rights during war-time I don't know, but I bet you one thing, they are a lot happier wearing their turbans in the good old USA, then they would be in some Arab sh1thole.

By the way, it so happens that members of my family were in Interment camps during World War II, but, for the life of me, how that applies to this discussion, I don't know.

[Boon Mee]

My father was in an internment camp also but the operative term was Prison Camp - like for 48 months. He got captured on Corregedor and went through the Bataan Death March. Went in weighing 220 lbs., came out at a not-so-robust 98 lbs. All he ever spoke to me about was: "Don't come home with a Japanese bride". I didn't - came back with a Thai! Don't think he was too pleased...

Boon Mee

[Jeepz]

The suspension of civil rights is an extraordinary measure. One that does have precedent in US history, but one that is not to be taken lightly. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the civil war. Roosevelt inturned individuals of Japanese extraction during world war II.

Neither of these actions are viewed as high points in our history. They were deemed necessary by the powers that be at the time they occurred. That they were subsequently repudiated by historians or legal experts is not surprising. No one has or can demonstrate that either action was truly necessary to survive the conflict that they were in response to. But no one can prove they were of no use either. Simply, we don't know. We may not like that they happened. We may feel they were unnecessary. But we can't actually show that they had zero effect on the outcome.

Since I distrust very large government with few limits, the current laws make me very nervous. Yes, I do want to catch the bad terrorists. No, I don't want to catch the odd crook using these powers. But once those powers are in the hands of law enforcement, they tend to use them across a broad spectrum of suspected crimes, not just for defense against our enemies.

So it becomes a balancing act. We really do need to stop the bad guys. Some of those bad guys are here in the States already. No, it can't be just like it used to be. But none of that means I want to see a police state. And if you simply leave it up to the police and their political supporters, pretty soon that is exactly what we will have. Nothing against them, they are not the spawn of satan, but that is how human nature works. They will want what is reasonable and convienent to them, not to the citizens.

Jeepz

[Thaiquila]

Spains elections NOT appeasement based on international commentary.

There are two sides to this story.

Democracy, Not Appeasement

By Jefferson Morley

washingtopost.com Staff Writer

Thursday, March 18, 2004; 8:34 AM

Don't call it appeasement.

International online commentators from Madrid to Manila are rejecting the suggestion that Spanish voters who voted out the country's pro-U.S. ruling party in the wake of the March 11 terrorist attack resemble the Europeans who sought to appease Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s. The accusation, says the Parisian daily, Le Monde, is "contemptuous."

The Wall Street Journal, among other conservative U.S. news sites, argues that the Spaniards who voted in antiwar socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero would have preferred "Chamberlain to Churchill."

In Europe, those are fighting words. "Chamberlain" was Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister in the 1930s who hoped to avoid war by acquiescing to Hitler's expansionist designs. "Churchill" was Winston Churchill, the Conservative prime minister who led Britain to eventual victory in World War II.

Madrid's leading daily, El Pais (in Spanish, by subscription), rejected such polemics in a Wednesday editorial. The editors of the Spanish daily defended Zapatero by citing his frequent statements that, without a U.N. Security Council resolution, he would withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops from Iraq. His position is "at bottom no different than the proposal of Democratic candidate John Kerry," noted El Pais.

The appeasement argument shows "a lot of contempt for the Spanish people who live daily with the threat of terrorism," say the editors of Le Monde.

Spanish voters ousted Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party "not out of fear, but anger," according to the French daily. "They did not support a government and a president, that deceived them and sought to manipulate their votes by putting all the responsibility for the attacks on the ETA [the Basque separatist group] while already possessing clues to Islamist involvement. The handling of the information, backed by pressure on the big media, revived the memory of other deceptions, such as the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which Mr. Aznar refused to explain."

"The Spanish right was beaten by itself, by turning to methods that it unfortunately does not have a monopoly on," the editors in Paris conclude. "That is why Spaniards' fresh start, far from amounting to resignation in the face of terrorism, is a lesson in democracy."

The appeasement argument fails to distinguish between the war against al Qaeda and the war in Iraq, says columnist Jonathan Freeland in the Guardian, the leftist London daily. While 90 percent of the Spanish electorate opposed the Iraq war, "there is no evidence that they were, or are, soft on [al Qaeda]," he writes.

"Let no one forget that 36 hours before the election, about 11 million Spaniards took to the streets to swear their revulsion at terrorism. It takes some cheek to accuse a nation like that of weakness and appeasement."

The Spanish voters did not cave in to the terrorists, he says.

"On the contrary, many of those who opposed the war in Iraq did so precisely because they feared it would distract from the more urgent war against Islamist fanaticism. (Witness the US military resources pulled off the hunt for Bin Laden in Afghanistan and diverted to Baghdad.) Nor was it appeasement to suggest that the US-led invasion of an oil-rich, Muslim country would make al-Qaeda's recruitment mission that much easier."

[britmaveric]

However you label it- Spain is appeasing the terrorists, even the terrorists say so themselves. I watched Sky News this AM and the cocky bastards "terrorists" issued a statement that they were calling a truce or how did they put it "rewarding" Spain for its decision to withdraw troops from Iraq.

Side note as for Chamberlain - if we had left it up to him, all of Europe would be speaking German. Mind you the Arabs prob would have been overjoyed, no jews about!

[Georgie-Porgie]

However you label it- Spain is appeasing the terrorists, even the terrorists say so themselves. I watched Sky News this AM and the cocky bastards "terrorists" issued a statement that they were calling a truce or how did they put it "rewarding" Spain for its decision to withdraw troops from Iraq.

Nuff' said.

[sbk]

Sorry for hijacking this thread about Spain with US Constitutional discussions. If I wanted to discuss

impressive quotes

like the Bill of Rights I really should have opened a new thread. Just that Franco comment distracted me and away we went. As always, the one thing that drives you nuts (ie threads digressing away from the topic at hand) is the one thing you end up guilty of

Apologies to Thaiquila for allowing the thread to be hijacked.

As for Spain, well, something like 90% of the population opposed Spain's involvement in the war in the first place. So, perhaps it isn't so surprising when the govt in power attempted to lay the blame on ETA despite appearances to the contrary, people got a little upset and decided to vote for someone who would perhaps be more truthful?

[adjan jb]

We are talking about some freedoms, temporarily, being curtailed

That's wishful thinking.