Explosion in madrid

[shinRaiden 0]

That is a really good point thats being made though, that the people voted against Anzar because of the war involvement. A common thought tossed around here is that the people voted based on the assumption that if Spain had ignored the war the bombing would not have happened - therefore Anzar 'caused' the bombing. That requires however, that the general spanish populace was apathetic or potentially interested in following Bush, both of which do not appear at all to be the case.

As for the 'lying' part, I would match it equally with the 'spinning' BS from the media. When the pundits (and we) had it nailed as ETA in the first 5 minutes, then AZF 5 minutes later, etc., then spin the blame for our own sticking-of-the-finger-in-the-air on the politicians, who actually have to do investigations and publish reports, who's fault is that? The politicians of course, because they can not do the impossible that we the populace demand of them.

[brgnorway 0]

Quote[/b] ]He's talking about the unfounded claims made by walker, and I could not agree more with him. As a matter of fact I was to post a similar thing but never got around to do it.

Sorry, but I think you are wrong. The very tone he used clearly shows disrespect:

Quote[/b] ]43% voted: "Please daddy make the bad man go away!!"

10% voted: "The socialist is cute, like Mr. Bean."

You tell me - but this is not in any way what Walker said. If the above quotings arnt' offending the voters in such a grave situation then I don't know what is!

He could just as well say that those voting for the socialists are cowards and not able to think logically.

Quote[/b] ]He's not making fun of the Spanish elections, he's making fun of Walker's unfounded numerical values.

Both I'd say! Making fun of Walker is not my business, but it's tasteless to ridicule the voters for making their choice - especially considering the context.

[walker 0]

Walker, first of all don't post numbers that you don't have any way of knowing. Is this what our debates have come to? When we don't have the numbers, we make up some?   You don't have the information to make an educated guess, so please don't give me fictive numbers.

Hi Denoir

The numbers I gave are estimates based on polls and I think reasonable by all means dispute them. They are my assesment I stand by them. No amount of moaning will stop me doing so.

Quote[/b] ]And yes I agree with you that the result was probably due to Anzar and his merry men trying to pin it on ETA. That would have however never happened if there was no terrorist attack. As I've said at least ten times now the only thing we look at is the terrorist attack and the election results. All the connections inbetween and events that followed are irrelevant as their source is the attack. In short AQ killed a lot of people and that triggered a number of events which in the end led to a government change in Spain that AQ can only be pleased with. They wanted Spain out of Iraq and thanks to their mass muder, they got what they wanted.

With respect sir your assesment is incorrect. It is incorrect because your imput variables are incorrect.

Your model is

Iraq War + Bombing = election results

A more correct model is

Iraq War + Bombing + Lieing about bombing = election results

On the Bombing. To asume that only Al Qaida's wishes matter to the spanish electorate is clearly false. Al Qaida is irelavent to spanish voters they have no cadidates in the election. The spanish electorate did not vote the way Al Qaida wanted they voted in reaction to lies nothing more nothing less. Al Qaida did not get the old spanish administration to lie they did it all on their own.

With respect sir your permise is incorrect. No Support for the Iraq war does not translate as No support for a War on Al Qaida. Expect to see increased numbers of spanish troops, special forces and their agents hunting for Al Qaida in Afghanistan it is after all UN sanctioned and legal.

Your assesment of tactical benefits to Al Qaida in the short term are correct they have sown discord in their enemy. The discord already existed though witness 90% of Spaniards were against the involvement in Iraq long before the bombing but strategic considerations mean Al Qaida has lost support in the muslim world. As with 9/11 muslims are sickened by an atrocity against innocents.

More importantly they have set the spanish as an abiding enemy of Al Qaida; they will never forgive or forget them. As a consequence the Socialists will ensure that they will hunt down the bombers and pursue them they have already caught 6 and they will be made to squeal like pigs I asure you.

That the fools in TBA and TBA2 may once again squander that strategic advantage I unfortunately have no doubt but the US election is only months away and I begin to be increasingly confident The Vietnam War Dodger George Bush Jnr will be beaten by the Combat Experienced War hero John F. Kerry. In a war on terror you need the real thing not the fake.

Kind Regards Walker

[Holy Smoke 0]

lol (interesting thread anyway)

Ok guys, if you want to stick with polls and numbers bear in mind that:

1) Those very same polls that were giving PP a victory, were showing that 57% wished a change in the government but they thought it was not possible.

2) In Spain, you can stablish a rule that reads as: high participation is to be in profit of the PSOE, low participation benefits PP. On March 14 participation was rated at 77%, wich is one of the highest records in the last 25 years.

3) Polls are not always accurate and we have discussion every now and then about its usefulness, because in more than one ocassion they had nothing to do with actual results. Electoral polls aren't an exact science and this is very true when you are facing a country with such a complex political map, wich is the case of Spain.

Beisdes, you can not avoid the proven fact that a couple of months before the attacks, a great deal of sh*t was hitting the fan concerning internal/domestic affairs and politics. The Stuff was flying away mainly from the government (the PP) against the autonomic communities (call them länders if this makes it clear) and people was already mad about that.

Once the attacks happened, the gov insisted it was ETA even when everybody abroad was thinking AQ, forced the UN to sign a comunicate against the "Attack by ETA", foreign affairs dep. was instructing all diplomats to say it was ETA, the press was receiving phone calls from the gov (even from Aznar himself) stating that it was ETA and some police chiefs were furious because they were forced to engage anti-ETA measures when they suspected it wasn't ETA and doing that could even allow actual suspects fleeing away. Sure it was difficult to be aware of all of this outside Spain, but inside we had reports every hour. It was such a thick "atmosphera" you could split it with a knife.

Some months ago, when Bush and Blair where appearing before the Congress and the public saying that maybe they were wrong about the WMD and some aspects concerning the war in Iraq, Aznar was simply refusing to do it because they had enough seats in the congress to avoid that. To the eyes of many, that just made a liar of him: he lied to the public and lied before the congress when stated "believe me, Iraq has WMD and I can prove it". After the bombings people had the same impression, the gov was lying to the public again.

This made a lot of people going to vote when, had the attack never happened, they might stayed home. Read number 2 abaove to know what happens when a lot of people votes in Spain. I'm not saying nobody changed oppinion because of the attack, I say those don't represent such a high number to affect the overcome in a signifficative way.

Regards.

[walker 0]

Hi Holy Smoke

Thanks for your very clear post

As I said

Electorates Remove Liars

Al Qaida's effect on the who voted for whom can be ignored all it did was increase the number of voters. It made the country more democratic not less.

Kind Regards Walker

[shinRaiden 0]

Screw quality, gimme quantity. Behold the almighty democratic power of the People's democratic lemming hordes, led by their exalted leader Darth Lemming.

Denoir has his spin on the numbers, Walker has his spin, and how accurate are those numbers to begin with? I feed all sorts of BS to the pollsters when they call, it's like playing with puppets. Gives you a huge evil rush.

A lot of people voted early and often in Russia too, it's sad to think what might happen to the unfortunate 29% who didn't vote for Putin, so lets not.

Back to spain. What's the connection with the two guys from India? The papers out of india say that sources say that they had no papers, and were likely in the country illegally. If that's the case, they should be giving them asylum and jobs and healthcare, not putting the screws to them in prison...

[denoir 0]

The numbers I gave are estimates based on polls and I think reasonable by all means dispute them. They are my assesment I stand by them. No amount of moaning will stop me doing so.

Ok, so it's ok if I make up my own numbers too? If you have based them on poll results, please post them.

Here are my equally (in)valid, completely made up numbers:

Iraq war: 2%

ETA story: 1%

Bombing: 10%

What? You disagree? On what basis?

Quote[/b] ]Your model is

Iraq War + Bombing = election results

A more correct model is

Iraq War + Bombing + Lieing about bombing = election results

No, my model is

[ some events #1] + bombing + [some events #2] = election results

And:

(without bombing)

[some events #1] + [some events #2] = other election result

It's quite simple. Assuming that the initial polls were correct, would you agree that if there had been no terrorist attack, Anzar would still be in power and Spanish troops would stay in Iraq?

Quote[/b] ]

No Support for the Iraq war does not translate as No support for a War on Al Qaida. Expect to see increased numbers of spanish troops, special forces and their agents hunting for Al Qaida in Afghanistan it is after all UN sanctioned and legal.

Your assesment of tactical benefits to Al Qaida in the short term are correct they have sown discord in their enemy. The discord already existed though witness 90% of Spaniards were against the involvement in Iraq long before the bombing but strategic considerations mean Al Qaida has lost support in the muslim world. As with 9/11 muslims are sickened by an atrocity against innocents.

More importantly they have set the spanish as an abiding enemy of Al Qaida; they will never forgive or forget them. As a consequence the Socialists will ensure that they will hunt down the bombers and pursue them they have already caught 6 and they will be made to squeal like pigs I asure you.

That the fools in TBA and TBA2 may once again squander that strategic advantage I unfortunately have no doubt but the US election is only months away and I begin to be increasingly confident The Vietnam War Dodger George Bush Jnr will be beaten by the Combat Experienced War hero John F. Kerry. In a war on terror you need the real thing not the fake.

That's all fine, but it has nothing to do with what I said.

It's quite simple. Answer these questions:

A] If there had been no bombing, would Anzar still be in power?

B] If Anzar was still in power, would troops from Iraq be withdrawn?

C] Does AQ want Spanish troops to withdraw from Iraq?

If you answered all three with 'yes' then by direct logic deduction follows:

AQ succeeded in getting Spain to withdraw troops from Iraq through the bombings.

If you answered "no" to any of the questions, then please explain why.

[walker 0]

Hi Denoir

Once again you oversimplyfy. Your questions are based on a false premise.

The question

Quote[/b] ]A] If there had been no bombing, would Anzar still be in power?

can never be answered it was superceded by reality. The old spanish administration engaged in a policy of cynical lies to boost its own election figures. Was it afraid it would loose the election anyway? We may never know.

Either way the result was that your question became:

A] If there had been no lieing about the bombing, would Anzar still be in power? To which the answer is a resounding maybe. If the extra 7% of spanish voters had voted for the old spanish regime as old spanish regime's tactic intended then yes they would have but they did lie and all your questions became moot.

Your questions about Al Qiada are irelavent. If you play the game of accepting their tactics as being relavent or important they have beaten you. For you are fighting on the ground Al Qaida has set. To beat them you must fight them on ground of your choosing.

History is the teacher. If the old spanish administration's lieing about the war in Iraq was not enough to loose them election then their lieing about the bombing was. It is a fact they lost.

Electors Remove Liars

Kind Regards Walker

[denoir 0]

Oh for fuck's sake walker, to be able to lie about the bombing, there had to be a bombing in the first place. The lying is a consequence of the bombing, not vice-versa.

[walker 0]

Oh for f**k's sake walker, to be able to lie about the bombing, there had to be a bombing in the first place. The lying is a consequence of the bombing, not vice-versa.

Hi Denoir

Dont swear its naughty.

The bombing is irelavent to the spanish election other than increasing the amount of voters.

It had zero effect on the way people voted.

They did not vote for bombers

They voted against liars.

Kind Regards Walker

[Tanaska 0]

Simple: if more people went to vote, higher turnout, it was the whip of the terrorists that drove them there. It was like a flock of terrified sheep.

I have friends from Spain who were in University with me. No one was on trains that I know, but there are many who hated Aznar and still are mad at election. Many think that election should have been postponed for a month or something to allow for people to think. Then the terrorist whip would not have been the main factor.

Any disrespect is reserved for terrorists, who like sheep dogs, scared them into doing what they want. It takes only a few sheepdogs to move a large herd through fear. I do not say all of Spain was sheep, but enough acted as sheep.

For Spain, I feel pain.

[denoir 0]

Oh for f**k's sake walker, to be able to lie about the bombing, there had to be a bombing in the first place. The lying is a consequence of the bombing, not vice-versa.

Hi Denoir

Dont swear its naughty.

Sorry, but I'm feeling like I'm talking to FSPilot here.

Quote[/b] ]The bombing is irelavent to the spanish election other than increasing the amount of voters.

No, it prompted Anzar to try to blame it on ETA which in turn resulted he lost the election.

Quote[/b] ]It had zero effect on the way people voted.

No, since it affected Anzar. His actions in return affected the way people voted. More than that, apathic anti-Anzar voters, instead of staying at home went to the polls.

Quote[/b] ]They did not vote for bombers

They voted against liars.

Yes and voting against the liars got the socialists in power which happen to share the same opinion as AQ on Iraq (i.e removal of Spanish troops).

[DracoPaladore 0]

I heard this from someone else, but didn't the attack happen 911 days have 9/11?

[denoir 0]

Simple:  if more people went to vote, higher turnout, it was the whip of the terrorists that drove them there.  It was like a flock of terrified sheep.

I don't agree with that. They reacted emotionally, yes, but not with fear - with anger against Anzar. For lying, for putting Spanish troops in Iraq against the will of the Spanish people and for utterly failing to protect them against terrorists..

On an absolute scale, it was the right thing to do. Unfortunately it was also what the terrorists wanted.

And that's the core of it. Spain's population and AQ share the same basic views on Iraq: that it was an unjust illegal war. That's the problem. They can't act according to their beliefs without in turn facilitating the terrorists who slaughtered their countrymen. It's a no-win situation. Keeping Anzar would be bad for the long term. On the short term however this plays right into the hands of those that murdered all those people.

[denoir 0]

I heard this from someone else, but didn't the attack happen 911 days have 9/11?

Date difference calculator

The 911 is wrong. It was 912 days. The one that made the calculation forgot that it is a leap year this year (february has 29 days).

[DracoPaladore 0]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up.

[shinRaiden 0]

The 911 is wrong. It was 912 days. The one that made the calculation forgot that it is a leap year this year (february has 29 days).

Looks like somebody goofed. Then again, (thursday?) before elections is a great time to drop naughty things, chaos on through the weekend, and by election time there's no time to spin it.

I think there was a case where a Palestinian bomber blew up an hour premature out in the boonies because the Israelis moved up the daylight savings time adjust to avoid having it fall on shabbat or a holyday, and the Palestinian of course wasn't paying attention to the difference in 'Zionist' time. Also, considering that several bombs failed to work would suggest that it was Al'Qaeda, their stuff sometimes doesn't work right, unlike more 'competent' idealistic thug gangs.

[Tanaska 0]

Denoir. You give the voters too much credit.

Fear and anger lead to the dark side. Or so I have heard.

[DracoPaladore 0]

Fear and anger lead to the dark side.  Or so I have heard.

The "dark side"?

-

You've been on too much Star Wars.

-

Does this mean you beleive the new PM is some sort of "dark side" leader now? I don't really understand.

[Tanaska 0]

No..I rephrase.  Voting because terrorists scare you to do it. Bad influence.

Understand now, I hope?

[DracoPaladore 0]

Ah, ok.

[Tanaska 0]

Oh, like Godfather. Mob boss will break legs, unless you do what he says. People think to run away from problem will solve it. No, it will not. The Mob boss will find you anyway eventually.

[brgnorway 0]

Oh, like Godfather.  Mob boss will break legs, unless you do what he says.  People think to run away from problem will solve it.  No, it will not.  The Mob boss will find you anyway eventually.

Oh spare me from that bullshit. By the way - if you refer to The Godfather you should at least learn the phrase correctly:

"I'll give you an offer you can't refuse" .

You logic is utter rubbish! Usually when people are scared they demand more safety and harsher precations and actions against the threats. That is what happend in USA with the Patriot act. There are several reasons why this didn't happen in Spain recently and it has been covered thouroghly here.

- Disapproval of the governments support to the war in Iraq.

- The recent bombing.

- The governmet lying as to whom was to blame for the bombing.

You are all forgeting that there was a political life in Spain before the bombing. Why don't you read up on that to learn a little!

[Chill 0]

Good to see people in Spain get rid of the government that sent soldiers to Iraq. Spain is a brave country!

[Tanaska 0]

Bgnorway, I have friends in Spain. They have told me many things that you do not know. Maybe if you had friends they would tell you things about the world as well.

I do not try to quote the movie, I talk about how mafia is. I would insult you, but your ignorant remark insults you enough.

Spain is not confronting enemy, they are turning and running. Withdrawing troops, bringing them home. We will see if the new president can still battle terror. Maybe, maybe not.

The terrorists won the election. You can yell at me as much as you want. You will still be wrong.