Third Party & Independents: Archives

So let me get this straight, terrorist action in Spain cowed the Spanish people into electing a socialist government in order to appease Al Qaeda? Yet if an election had been held in the US three days after 9/11, Bush would almost certainly been returned on a massive land slide as his approval ratings went up to 92%. So the lesson for Al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11 would have been, “lets not bother attacking because we only strengthing the hand of our enemy”. There is a bit of an inconsistency here don’t you think? Or was it part of their plan to strengthen support for Bush?

What would any voter in their right mind have done to a Government that was caught trying decieve the public and spin a national disaster, in order to get reelcted? There were lies told before the invasion in Iraq, which 90% of Spanish opposed, and then there was a big fat whopper of lie told by the PP after the bombing in Madrid.

The fact is, there is no simple lesson to be learn’t here, except perhaps, that you shouldn’t lie to your electorate right before an election, and if you do don’t get caught.

Misha:

You have hit the nail on the head, once again.
If terrorists feel they can influence or change policy through terror, then they will use that weapon liberally.

This is the same reason why many organizations refuse to pay ransoms for kidnap victims. It is not out of a lack of desire to help the victim, but rather out of a desire to prevent further kidnappings. Martin Burnham, a missionary in the Philippines, died in a gun battle between his kidnappers and troops. Had a ransom been paid, he might be alive today. But….the kidnappers would still be on the loose, and would undoubtedly continue their successful kidnappings.

The short term success (Martin Burnham being alive) would be a long term defeat (many others being kidnapped, raped and killed)

The Russians of the 60’s and 70’s never had problems with skyjackings etc. Why??? Because they refused to negotiate or in any way appease the skyjackers. Their policy, while brutal, was effective: If you kidnap our people, we will kill you. We will never negotiate, and we will never stop hunting you down, at ANY COST.

Terrorists understand that appeasement is a win for them. We can never let them win, because they keep coming back for more.

Bob- let me try to be more clear. there are four possible responses to a terrorist attack from the terrorist point of view:

(1) the country does absolutely nothing, and change no policies. This is rather unlikely, unlses the country is so poor that it cant even worry about the attack, or the attack is real small.

(2) the country changes its policy, but the terrorists are nuetraly disposed between the policy the government takes and the one it had before the attacks.

(3) the country changes its policy in a way that frustrates the terrorists goals and policy agenda- say, for example, taking out its bases in Afganistan.

(4) the country changes its policy to come more in line with the terrorists goals.

In the case of Spain, we had option 4 occur. That is the worst possible response from the point of view of detering terrorists. I know the Spanish people had other motives what they did as well, but the fact that the terrorists demanded a regime that would pull out of iraq, the Spanish people provided such regime after the attacks (in at least partial response to those attacks, it appears), and that regime’s first step was to do exactly what the terrorists wanted is what I am pointing to. This is exactly what this group in France thinks it have force to happen- option (4). Im the case of your 9/11 example, the people’s response to it would be either a category (2) or more likely a caterogy (3) from the point of view of the terrorists. I hope that explains my point more clearly.

Misha,
You said yourself that terrorists will attack no matter what we do. Yet you seem to suggest that there would be less chance of an attack if the conservatives in Spain had won. Isn’t that a bit inconsistent?

Also, in general it is wrong to assume that the terrorists have won, because of the Spanish government’s loss.This is because,
first of all, Zapatero( the new guy) has not withdrawn his support from the movement to get rid of terrorism, infact, it’s quite the opposite.
Secondly, the Spanish people withdrew support from the government because they felt they had been lied to, and strong-armed into an unjustified war in Iraq( and they had been).I’m sure the attack was a major part of it, as they probably felt that by jumping into this war, they would be increasing the chance of being seen as a major target.May seem cowardly but who wouldn’t want to do eveything in their power to not get attacked?
Finally, the matter was also compounded by Aznar’s repeated accusations that ETA was responsible, even in the face of mounting evidence that the attack was carried out by islamic fundamentalists.

Also, (I’ve said this many times) your argument that terrorists are like kids who throw tantrums, which should be firmly dealt with, doesn’t seem to hold up in the case of Palestine and Israel.
No matter what the Israeli’s do, bomb, tank, raze, they cannot stop the suicide bombers, and if we continue to deal with terrorism in this same stupid fashion, we are probably never going to see an end to it.

Suhani- you make very good points. I would respond that while terrorists will attack anyway, they are more likely to attack your particular country if they think they can get results. they wish- the point is to give them as many negative incentives as possible. Not giving them what they want is only one of the many steps you need to take it- it is hardly a catch-all. Do you disagree with that?

I don’t disagree with you on that point, though let me just put forth a question to you.
Suppose you felt that your government had misled you, and lied to you about some issue of critical importance, ( whether or not that was actually the case, is irrelevant here), and then you saw something happen that you felt to be a direct consequence of those lies, wouldn’t you want to get rid of that government?
I mean I think its a question of how the Spanish are prioritising right now.They’re probably like , Ok, we want to get rid of terrorism, but first we want to make sure we don’t get attacked again, so lets remove what we see to be the cause of those attacks and then fight terror later.
Maybe it’s a mistake, but I guess only time will tell.

Suhasini- of course I agree with you that I would not vote for such a government if i truely believed they lied on purpose.. i do not think I would change my vote to the party who would give the terrorists exactly what they are demanding either. I would probably vote for a third party, and then my vote wouldnt matter all that much :(.. i see your point.

“they believe that they can actually influence French policy shows the danger of taking steps like the Spanish did in their recent elections.”

are you making a parrellel to the u.s.a.? I doubt you are but I am just wondering.

martin- i was making no parralel to the U.S. There are no serious politicians in our country who are taking stances that could be called giving the terrorists what they want… John kerry wouldnt pull out of Iraq like the Spanish socialists did, and while I would not vote for him, i could not see him making decisions to give the terrorist what they want in hopes of stopping more attacks…

It’s a post hoc propter hoc fallacy from the get go. Let them be that stupid. The Spanish vote was not so simple as appeasing or not appeasing terrorists. There were issue on the table, and one rather foolish conclusion that was not only jumped to, but put on record in the UN security council.

Tell me, would you choose your president simply to thumb your nose at the terrorists, or would you do so to get the best respresentatives possible? They chose their leaders based on the conduct they saw of them. They saw leaders who defied their will, kept the truth from them, and did so thinking they could win the election by those means. Before the revelation of the facts, the Popular party was on its way to slim majority. The deciding factor was the deception, the insistence on ETA involvment in the face of the facts.

There is no winning this kind of argument, because the Terrorists can win by forcing radicalism on their opponents, and thereby justifying the rationality of their cause.

The way you win is by ignoring the terrorists demands, and simply voting the way that seems best by itself. Otherwise, they’ll have you Both ways.

I have to critique the messenger. I beg your pardon.

Stephen, right on the money, as ever.

Misha, your comments are offensive to me and my people, but ultimately they show a lot more about you than anything else. It reflects a simplistic, Bushesque, black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us, good-guy-or-bad-guy view of the world, unfortunately so common among Neocons. We’ve been fighting terrorism for 30 years now and we have never given in to even one of their demands. You should apologise.

Germán.
Madrid, Spain