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Counter the spin that “the terrorists won” in Spain:

Weak on Terror
Paul Krugman
New York Times, March 16, 2004

“My most immediate priority,” Spain’s new leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, declared yesterday, “will be to fight terrorism.” But he and the voters who gave his party a stunning upset victory last Sunday don't believe the war in Iraq is part of that fight. And the Spanish public was also outraged by what it perceived as the Aznar government’s attempt to spin last week’s terrorist attack for political purposes.

The Bush administration, which baffled the world when it used an attack by Islamic fundamentalists to justify the overthrow of a brutal but secular regime, and which has been utterly ruthless in its political exploitation of 9/11, must be very, very afraid.

Polls suggest that a reputation for being tough on terror is just about the only remaining political strength George Bush has. Yet this reputation is based on image, not reality. The truth is that Mr. Bush, while eager to invoke 9/11 on behalf of an unrelated war, has shown consistent reluctance to focus on the terrorists who actually attacked America, or their backers in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. . . .

The answer to terror is plain
James P. Pinkerton
New York Newsday, March 16, 2004

. . . the Madrid bombings demonstrated yet again that the real danger to the West was never inside Iraq. Instead, the danger was always to “soft targets” in the West, such as train stations or the World Trade Center. And the bad guys weren't Iraqi agents, but rather supranational networks using low-tech weapons of medium destruction. These networks may not consist of Iraqis, but they draw strength from the perception—justified, in the case of Iraq—that America and its allies have launched their own jihad against the Arab world.

Revealingly, these latest alleged mass killers had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, who was never a popular figure among Islamicists. Instead, they appear to be Islamic radicals linked to al-Qaida. And even more revealingly, three of those arrested are Moroccans; maybe they knew that the Spanish were still celebrating St. James the Moor Killer.

The lesson of Madrid was clear enough. Those Spanish troops currently hunkering down in Iraq, dodging snipers, could have been used instead to secure “soft targets” on the homefront, guarding Spain’s borders and transport system. . . .

Spain got the point
Jonathan Freedland
Guardian Unlimited, March 17, 2004

. . . no word is invoked more often in support of the “war on terror” than democracy. Yet these insults hurled at the Spanish show a sneaking contempt for the idea. For surely the Spanish did nothing more on Sunday than exercise their democratic right to change governments. They elected the Socialist party; to suggest they voted for al-Qaida is a slur not only on the Spanish nation but on the democratic process itself, implying that when terrorists strike political choice must end. . . .

11-M: A New Symbol in the Lexicon of Terror
Marcelo Ballve
Berkeley Daily Planet, March 19, 2004

. . . Much in the way “post-9/11” symbolizes a world changed after the Sept. 11 attacks, 11-M in some quarters is beginning to represent a different way of responding to terrorism, one that stresses peace over bellicosity and calibrated responses instead of an all-consuming world war against a shadowy foe.

The Spanish electorate, says commentator Luis Bruschtein in the March 16 Buenos Aires daily Página 12, has pointed in a new direction by electing a dovish leader to head their government just days after the deadly bombings. The voters’ decision was “so admirable,” Bruschtein writes, “because they voted against war when the most primitive impulse would have been to seek revenge.” In this way, Spaniards “have discredited the supposed liberating and religious morality of the attackers and have put them in their place as common criminals.”

In Mexico City daily El Universal, opinion writer Alberto Aziz Nassif put the same idea this way: “To put out a fire one does not continue to toss gasoline on it.” . . .

With few exceptions, the region’s governments, including key players like Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, share Zapatero’s belief that the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq was wrong and a misguided strategy for stifling terror.

Even former staunch U.S. allies were suddenly reconsidering their terror war tack in the wake of 11-M. Honduras, which sent hundreds of troops to Iraq, announced a pullout too, despite the Central American nation’s desperate need to stay on Washington’s good side for aid and immigration favors. Guatemala and El Salvador are also now reconsidering their troop commitments. Meanwhile, bombings and attacks are again flaring up in Iraq, near the one-year anniversary of the Iraq war’s start.

“Winds of change” are blowing across the Atlantic, according to a March 16 editorial in New York Spanish-language daily El Diario/La Prensa. It’s not yet clear how U.S. Hispanics, for whom both 9/11 and 11-M resonate strongly, will react. Polls have shown them to be more disapproving of the Iraq war than the general population. Spain’s new political configuration, and the fact that the Bush administration is more isolated than ever internationally suggest that U.S. Hispanics may begin to object more strongly to President Bush’s anti-terror policies. 11-M and its effect on U.S. politics is, at the least, an important new variable in this year’s election.

Voters Want Honesty
David Bach
Washington Post, March 17, 2004

. . . The lesson of Madrid is that the war on terrorism can be won only with the people, not against them or behind their backs. Terrorists wage war against innocent civilians, ordinary citizens like the many Madrileños who took the train to work or school on Thursday morning. The attacks made it painfully clear once more that anyone can become the victim of terrorism, at any time, in any place. In such times of omnipresent danger, the least people expect is not to be misled by those in charge.

Opposition to the war in Iraq did matter on Election Day in Spain. But for many, rejection of the governing party was not based on a simple notion that the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq brought on the attacks. Instead, it stemmed from the perception that the government withheld information about the attacks and deliberately tried to sway public opinion on a matter of utmost importance. Over the weekend Spain didn’t have a government that led, it had a governing party that campaigned. . . .

The Warning in Spain’s Election
NRC Handelsblad
The Brookings Institution, March 17, 2004

Nearly ninety percent of the Spanish population opposed Aznar's decision to support Bush's war against Iraq. They saw it as a dangerous, destabilizing, and unnecessary intervention that was likely to result in more ill than good. While most Spaniards may not have blamed the terrorist attacks on Aznar's support for Bush, the bombings enhanced the salience of the Iraq issue just days before the election. Indeed, turnout last Sunday rose significantly, especially among the young, to the apparent benefit of the Socialist Party.

Another flaw in this reasoning is in assuming that Spaniards, like Americans, see Iraq as the central front in the war on terror. They don't. For them, as for most Europeans, the war in Iraq and the war on terror are completely separate. In fact, the train bombings in Madrid (like the earlier attacks in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Turkey) underscored that toppling Saddam Hussein had not ended the threat of terrorism. To the contrary, it may even have encouraged it—which is how many Spaniards interpreted last week's terrorist attacks. . . .

Spaniards of every political stripe—conservative and socialist—are united in their commitment to stand up to terror. All of them, after all, have lived with the reality of terror for many, many years. The same is true for all other European allies—be they new or old.

The scale of the latest catastrophe means that Spain and all European countries now realize that terrorists can strike as easily in Barcelona, Berlin, Birmingham or Bologna as they can in Boston or Buffalo. The need to strengthen international cooperation in law enforcement, intelligence, and, when necessary, military operations has clearly been underscored—as European ministers meeting just yesterday made clear.

There is another lesson here, which has to do with governance in a democracy. Governments that ignore the wishes of their own people—and that over time fail to convert them to their cause—will likely suffer the consequences at the polls. The same goes for governments that manipulate information or mislead their voters. It is a lesson all democratic governments, interested in reelection, would do well to heed.

Indeed. Today in England, Richard Overy warns readers that History will damn them
We must not accept our leaders’s illegal occupation of a sovereign state
Guardian Unlimited, March 20, 2004

. . . This week's opinion poll purports to show how grateful the Iraqis now are for their liberation. No one would wish Saddam Hussein back. The problem is that the reason for going to war was quite different. If unseating tyrants was the priority, Saddam should have been unseated long ago. War in 2003 was about protecting British and American interests, not liberating Iraq, a posture of self-interest rather than magnanimity. This was the same motive for declaring war on Hitler in 1939. It was not dictators that the west could not stomach, but the threat to their interests and way of life (again).

In this sense, the analogy drawn last year that Saddam had to be confronted like Hitler was truer than might have been supposed. Parliament was bamboozled into accepting that Saddam posed an immediate threat to Britain. There were honourable motives for declaring war on Hitler, as there are for unseating Saddam, but that is not what, a year ago, we were offered. . . .

Blair was right. Terrorism is the chief threat we face, and the war against terror must unite us all. This has little to do with Iraq. Attacks against the occupiers were provoked by war. Attacks in Israel are part of a different struggle for Palestinian liberation. The assault in Madrid is part of a longer confrontation between militant Islam and western cultural and economic imperialism. Lumping them all together as evidence that a war against terror is the primary object of our foreign policy is nonsense. . . .

Terrorists do not blow people up just because they are nihilistic thugs. Terrorism is born of fear, resentment and powerlessness in the face of the massive power and cultural expansion of the west; it is about real issues for those who perpetrate its acts of violence. Palestinians die because they want to free Palestine. Understanding those issues on their own terms and adjusting our politics in order to do so does not mean that we endorse violence.

Last year Blair told the British people: "Let history be my judge." The history of the past year has been damning, but there is an opportunity for the people to judge as well. The same message that the Spanish people sent to José Aznar can also be sent to Bush and Blair. It will not solve the world's problems, but it might make the world a safer place.

“The guy is living on some parallel planet”

Red alert at the White House
Failures pile up for our anti-government government
Molly Ivins
WorkingForChange, March 16, 2004

AUSTIN, Texas—How much fun can one administration have? More dead GIs. New record trade deficit. Stock market plunge. Defeated ally in Spain. New Spanish prime minister says the occupation in Iraq is a “continuing disaster” and he’s pulling his troops out. Still no jobs. And then the guy who was supposed to be the new jobs czar turns out to have laid off 75 of his own workers while building a $3 million factory in China to employ 165 Chinese people. Whoever has the aspirin concession at the White House must be making a fortune.

The unfortunate matter of the would-be jobs czar came at a particularly awkward moment. More than six months ago, President Bush promised to appoint a “manufacturing czar” at the Commerce Department. As the Center for American Progress points out, since then we’ve lost another 250,000 manufacturing jobs. Bush was on his way to Ohio last week, where the economy has just been hemorrhaging jobs, to “focus on jobs.” He actually claimed, “We're creating jobs—good, high-paying jobs for the American citizen.” . . .

The website Daily Misleader found a truly impressive convergence between Bush's top campaign contributors and the corporations that have outsourced the most jobs abroad. Bush has gotten $440,000 and the Republican Party has gotten $3.6 million from the corporations that have outsourced the most jobs, including American Express, Bechtel and several computer companies. . . .

The Politics of Self-Pity
Maureen Dowd
New York Times, March 14, 2004

. . . [Bush’s campaign] ads, pilloried for the crass use of the images of a flag-draped body carried from ground zero and an Arab-looking everyman with the message, "We can fight against terrorists," actually have a more fundamental problem. They try to push off blame for anything that's gone wrong during Mr. Bush's tenure on bigger forces, supposedly beyond his control.

One ad cites “an economy in recession. A stock market in decline. A dot-com boom gone bust. Then a day of tragedy. A test for all Americans.”

Mr. Bush’s subtext is clear: If it weren’t for all these awful things that happened, most of them hangovers from the Clinton era, I definitely could have fulfilled all my promises. I’m still great, but none of my programs worked because, well, stuff happens. . . .”

Bush’s partial history
Stringent military screening program may explain gaps on president's record
Bill Morlin and Karen Dorn Steele
The Spokesman Review.com, March 14, 2004

Military rules used in 1974 to ground two Washington Air National Guard airmen with access to nuclear weapons also applied to a Texas Air National Guard unit where Lt. George W. Bush was a fighter pilot.

Some military researchers and a former Texas Guard lieutenant colonel believe the stringent regulations -- known as the Human Reliability Program -- may have been invoked to stop Bush from flying Texas Air National Guard jets in 1972. . . .

From a while back, all together in one place, for your convenience, to include, say, in letters to the editor of your local paper or to your members of Congress, pungent quotes that have turned out to be blatant lies:

Bush’s Other Lies
The economy, the environment, public health and civil liberties—not to mention why we went to war with Iraq. Lying is a key part of the way the Bush administration governs
Barry Yeoman
The Independent, February 18, 2004

Confidence Man
The case for Bush is the case against him
Peter Saletan
Salon, March 4, 2004

. . . From foreign to economic to social policy, Bush's record is a lesson in the limits and perils of conviction. He's too confident to consult a map. He's too strong to heed warnings and too steady to turn the wheel when the road bends. He's too certain to admit error, even after plowing through ditches and telephone poles. He's too preoccupied with principle to understand that principle isn't enough. Watching the stars instead of the road, he has wrecked the budget and the war on terror. Now he's heading for the Constitution. It's time to pull him over and take away the keys. . .

Yes, Dumbya, keep exploiting 9/11

All the clamor over Bush’s use of 9/11 footage in his campaign ads—I say: Bring it on. Keep it in our collective faces that the most serious and deadly security breach in American history happened under your watch. Keep us reminded of how you and your cabal have utterly refused to cooperate with a real investigation into the circumstances of that most deadly attack. Keep creating that opportunity, that need, for the families of 9/11 victims to be interviewed on their opinion of your use of the attacks for your own political gain, which, as we will now be reminded, you promised not to do.

Let us first remember how you yourself were AWOL for most of that day. Let us not forget how you then so generously, so altruistically and so concerned for the well-being of the American people gave Saudi relatives of Osama bin Laden free passage, their own special flight out of the country immediately following the attacks—though absolutely everybody else was grounded. Let us never forget those 28 scrubbed pages from the “report” you did so nobly provide. The 28 missing pages and the photo-op meeting you had with the Saudi Foreign Minister, remember that? And, let us remember, everytime we see that footage, that the lawfirm of your family lawyer James Baker III, is representing your billionaire Saudi friends against those 9/11 victims families’ lawsuits. Even in the face of blatant evidence presented by your own side that your buddy Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz has funneled millions to terrorist front organizations, Saudi Arabia is politely omitted from any of your communications. Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis—none were Iraqis, we do recall. Keep us reminded of how many, how very very many unanswered questions there are about 9/11, and how you don’t seem very concerned about them at all.

So, yes, George, keep exploiting 9/11. Show everybody how truly incompetent, clueless, corrupt and conniving you truly are.