Spain still under attack from terrorists!

[Mike AI]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040402/D.../D81MMVJ81.html

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Police found a bomb Friday under the track of Spain's bullet train line between Madrid and Seville, the Spanish interior minister said. Bomb-disposal experts alerted by a railway employee found 22-24 pounds of explosive that might be dynamite about 40 miles south of Madrid, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said.

The explosives were connected to a detonator with a 450-foot cable, the minister told a news conference.

The track is used by Spain's Ave trains, which can reach speeds of 186 mph.

Acebes said it was not known who placed the bomb.

The bomb's discovery came less than a month after 10 backpack bombs ripped through four commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and injuring more than 1,800. The focus of the investigation is a Moroccan extremist group with links to al-Qaida. The bombs were detonated with cell phones attached to the explosives.

On Thursday, police in northern Spain defused three letter bombs addressed to journalists in Madrid.

Acebes said the origin of the letter bombs has not been determined, although the mechanism of the bombs is "similar to those that have been used by anarchist groups on previous occasions."

[Evil Chris]

savages...

[Mike AI]

Popular belief goes that the first bombing of a Spanish train moved the electorate to throw out the gov't who was supporting Bush and the US.

So the terrorist claimed a victory, and realized they could possibly bully the Spanish.

Now you can see the results. If you give in to terrorism, if you give them what you want, they will continue to push. The stated goal of Al Quada, and most Islamic terrorism is to destroy all non-beleivers, and world domination of their brand of Islam.

Maybe the Spanish people will find their BALLS, and get back into the game. The only way to win is to stay strong and DEFEAT the enemy!

Appeasement does NOT work - it only makes the problems worse!

[PornoDoggy]

Mikey, Mikey, Mikey ... gotta give you credit. Once you learn a song, you sing it for all it's worth.

First of all, you continue to equate the decision of the Spanish electorate to turn out the party in power to (in a wonderful high-school sports analogy) a "lack of balls." You refuse to acknowledge that it's just not that simple - that the patently false and pathetic attempts by the government to blame ETA in the face of the evidence probably played a major role in that decision.

Second, you must not know that Spain suffered 20 years of terrorist attacks from ETA before al Qaida was spun off the CIA proxy fight in Afghanistan.

Third, you apparently don't know that Spain's had on-again, off-again battles with anarchists since before the Spainish Civil War.

So ... perhaps your problem is that you are just too sophisticated to understand the situation in Spain. Unlike you, the Spanish people don't have enough appreciation of real politik to continue to support a government that a) engaged in a war that was unpopular with the majority of citizens, suffered an attack as a result of that decision, and c) tried to shift the blame for that attack away from the perpetrators for political purposes.

That's the pesky, annoying thing about democracy, Mikey - lying cocksuckers tend to become unpopular and get voted out of office by unsophisticated folks who expect at least a little bit of truth out of the mouths of their politicians.

The bombs may very well be alQaida. However, if you know anything about Spain - or the world - you will know that not all terrorists are alQaida.

Maybe the events in Spain demostrate that some of the opponents of the Iraqi escapade were right in the first place - that while Iraq had no connection to alQaida BEFORE the war, it would become an alQaida cause after it started.

[Nickatilynx]

Mike,

For the love of R-n , just give it up!!! ;-)))

[RawAlex]

PD: I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. There are many groups that had "struggles" with the government before. Every country that has seen a terror attack has had terror bombs from local groups before.

It isn't hard to draw a direct line from US actions to more terror actions. It is the same pattern that is seen in Israel today... the harder to government pushes, the more the other side resorts to drastic action. In both cases, the weaker group uses terror style attacks to keep things "even" as far as they see. In both cases, they use religeon as a motivating factor to make these attacks happen.

The tit for tat act / retaliation / retribution / payback / evening of the score / eye for an eye horsehit that has been middle east politics for as long as I can remember looks to be spreading to the entire world. Terrorists drag everyone down, and Bush is stupid enough to get engaged in a war that cannot be won until 100% of the other side is dead.

It sucks.

Alex

[JR]

BLAME CANADA!!!!

[PornoDoggy]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Apr 2 2004, 12:00 PM
The tit for tat act / retaliation / retribution / payback / evening of the score / eye for an eye horsehit that has been middle east politics for as long as I can remember looks to be spreading to the entire world. Terrorists drag everyone down, and Bush is stupid enough to get engaged in a war that cannot be won until 100% of the other side is dead.

It sucks.

Alex

We can agree that it sucks, but ...

Now wait just a minute here, Alex. You are doing almost exactly the same thing as Mike - you are confusing the war in Iraq with the war on terror.

The United States is engaged in a war on terror that cannot be won until 100% of the other side is dead, and that is NOT George Bush's fault. I have absolutley no problem with fighting that war whatsoever. I would be more than happy to put the fire out on the dead burning bodies of the members of alQaida and like-minded groups by pissing on them on al Jezera television. I promise to chant an "ohmmmmm", sing kum-by-yah and feel guilty about it afterwords, but that's what it will take to win that war.

As much as I think Bush is the root of all evil, I cannot blame him for that war. He wasn't anywhere near the federal government when that war started. The war on Islamic fundamentalism is very real. The fools that blather on about creating a democracy in Iraq don't seem to realize that some of the governments in the Islamic world that were making steps toward implementing democracy have had to scale those efforts back because of attacks from Islamic fundamentalists. They are every bit as mistaken as those who think we just need to understand them (the terrorists) better, "atone" for our past sins, or whatever the current peacenik rhetoric is.

The war on terror and Islamic fundamentalism is very real. In the war on terror, Iraq was a colossal mistake - comprable to attacking Hitler's nominal ally, Spain's Franco, in 1945, rather than invading France.

[RawAlex]

PD: the war on terror and the war in Iraq are two different things (one is always needed, the other one a total sham). However, if you back up a couple of steps, you can see that the Bin Ladin situation is an outcrop of the first war in Iraq. Bin Ladin's excuse for hating the US is that the infidels have troops in the Saudi territories. That is where this really starts.

As for Spain, well, without the war in Iraq, I doubt that the bombings would not have occured in the manner they did. It isn't to change the outcome of the Iraq conflict, but rather to isolate the US and make allies less likely to support future actions of any sort.

Alex

[Dravyk]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Apr 2 2004, 10:17 AM
Maybe the Spanish people will find their BALLS, and get back into the game. The only way to win is to stay strong and DEFEAT the enemy!

Appeasement does NOT work - it only makes the problems worse!

Not sure you can handle this, Mike.

I may have to tear my "liberal" card into tiny pieces now.

I again find myself agreeing with you.

[PornoDoggy]

However, if you back up a couple of steps, you can see that the Bin Ladin situation is an outcrop of the first war in Iraq. Bin Ladin's excuse for hating the US is that the infidels have troops in the Saudi territories. That is where this really starts.

I think that's as niave an assumption as the idea that you can turn Iraq into a democracy and use it as a base for further operations. You can no more simplify the matter down to that than you can assume that all Muslims are Islamic fundamentalists. Even you refer to the infidel intrusion into Saudi as an excuse. If not for that, it would be something else.

What the Islamic fundamentalists want is to turn the Islamic world into Afghanistan. Even the mullahs in Iran fear these folks. Morocco has had to scale back attempts to democratize due to attacks from Islamic fundamentalists.

The clash between the West and Islamic fundamentalists is inevitable. How we fight it, and where we fight it, is the question that needs to be debated.

As for Spain, well, without the war in Iraq, I doubt that the bombings would not have occured in the manner they did.

At it's widest point, the Straits of Gibraltar that separate Spain from Morocco is 1/3 the distance between Florida and Cuba. Spain has economic interests in Morocco that would have lead to the conflict involving them regardless of their participation in the Iraqi diversion. I have no doubt that this was part of the muddle-headed thinking of the Spanish government when it got involved in the war - the American right are not the only people with their head up their ass.

Again, the war in Iraq was merely a pretext to carry out attacks that would have taken place anyway - if not now, then soon enough.

Trust me, I am not known for taking an opportunity to blame Bush for something (I think Mike AI would serve as a reference) - but the war with Islamic fundamentalists is not his fault. I don't dispute that the war in Iraq is an unnecessary diversion that has set the real war back considerably, but a discussion based on defending as factual the pathetic excuses offered by the terrorists as justification for their acts does not contribute to the debate over where/whom/when to fight the battles that will have to be fought.



Last edited by PornoDoggy at Apr 2 2004, 02:31 PM

[RawAlex]

Oh yeah, I just wanted to add this:

Appeasement and Attack are two extremes of a very long road. In between those two points is an assload of grey, including politics, and external pressure. Appeasement (or all out war) is an extreme answer, and in this situation, extreme answers are proving not to be good answers.

I think it sad when the situation can only be discussed and thought of in these extremes. The real answer lies somewhere away from the poles, I suspect.

Alex

[Vick]

Got any suggestions Alex?

[JR]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Apr 2 2004, 10:59 AM


As for Spain, well, without the war in Iraq, I doubt that the bombings would not have occured in the manner they did. It isn't to change the outcome of the Iraq conflict, but rather to isolate the US and make allies less likely to support future actions of any sort.

You can say that about everything and always make some point about some hypothetical cause and effect relationship. that does not change the fact that religious fundamentalists have always existed and they advocate the destruction of the west. That is the foundation of their teachings. To rally people, you need a cause and en enemy. That enemy to the poorest and most primative nations on earth will always be the most successful and most prosperous.

I dont agree at all that there is any situation that would make terrorism go away other than the complete and total destruction of terrorists, terrorist networks, funding, save havens etc. I think its extremely naive to believe that if someone would just appease extremists, they would go away. These are flawed people by nature and others exploit them.

Bin Laden... did this... Bin Laden did that because... So what? My opinion is that Bin Ladens original declaration of war against the US is a symptom. Not the problem. If it was not US troops in Saudi Arabia, it would be Isreal or some other situation that gives them a spring board to rally impoverished people behind twisted religious beliefs to fight a losing idealogical battle.

[JR]

Originally posted by Vick@Apr 2 2004, 11:37 AM
Got any suggestions Alex?

just his usual "the US sucks" , "republicans suck" , "Bush sucks"... "and thats all i have to say"

:P

[theduderocks]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Apr 2 2004, 07:17 AM
Popular belief goes that the first bombing of a Spanish train moved the electorate to throw out the gov't who was supporting Bush and the US.

So the terrorist claimed a victory, and realized they could possibly bully the Spanish.

Now you can see the results. If you give in to terrorism, if you give them what you want, they will continue to push. The stated goal of Al Quada, and most Islamic terrorism is to destroy all non-beleivers, and world domination of their brand of Islam.

Maybe the Spanish people will find their BALLS, and get back into the game. The only way to win is to stay strong and DEFEAT the enemy!

Appeasement does NOT work - it only makes the problems worse!

Sea spot run. See Dick run. See Jane run with Dick. You really need to get a more sophisticated view of the real world, Mike. You been living in gated communities for far too long. You truly have no idea of the law of consequences do you? Here is a test. This happened in Russia, M. Gorbachev cut back on Vodka production. All of a sudden people had no bread to eat. Vodka laws were relaxed, bread appeared. I am sure you are puzzled as hell. The world does not function like Florida you know. It is slightly more complex. You really should think, before you post such simplistic bombast. At least get your hood drycleaned first so it sounds plausible.

[Anonymous]

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[PornoDoggy]

Originally posted by JR+Apr 2 2004, 02:45 PM-->