I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Exactly!
Ask Silvio if he supplied Cheney with the forged documents from Niger.
Christ! Who woke Matt up?
Yeah, pretty ironic that Spain was the target.
...days before their national election.
Another sober, moderate voice gets shrill.
Good.
I loved the way that the Spanish govt insisted it was the Basques who did it, in spite of evidence to the contrary. These guys could probably find work in the Bush administration if they lose the election in Spain.
Most Europeans were plenty serious about terrorism before this happened.
Exactly. I argued this point to my goofy family at christmas this year after hearing all kinds of nonsense about how the french didn't get it.
I gave them a 3 minute history of the french v. algerians and they shut up pretty quickly. We could actually learn from them, if we didn't have our collective heads up our asses. (of course I mean our current gov., not the community here)
I loved the way that the Spanish govt insisted it was the Basques who did it, in spite of evidence to the contrary...
Yeah, and Spain was a little too quick to manipulate the UN Security Council into voting unanimously in favor of a resolution condemning ETA for the train attack. Shame on Aznar. Shame on the PP.
Faux news is propping up the meme that 'maybe now those anti-war Europeans will take the War on Terror seriously'
Who has made more arrests on terrorism charges, the Americans or the Europeans? I'm not talking about gathering up all the Talibanis in Afghanistan, I'm talking about proper police investigations resulting in arrests.
As a general comment, I wish that one or two of those right-wing France haters would take a trip overseas. It does wonderfully open the mind...
Good for you four legs good.
I first saw "The Battle of Algiers" years ago, and recently saw it again for a class. It may still be banned in France.
I understand the boys in the Pentagon got around to having screenings right after the war started last year.
When I lived in Greece, the government was still having problems with "17 November" and the occasional hijacking in Athens. There was a pretty big massacre in Da Vinci Airport in Rome during the Reagan administration. Lots of other incidents too numerous to mention.
People need to get their heads out of their asses and realize that Yurp's been dealing with turra a lot lonegr than Murica.
um, that would be "longer"
I gave them a 3 minute history of the french v. algerians
four legs good, this brings to mind what I first thought when I heard we were going to move our soldiers in Iraq out of the cities and into fortified camps way in the desert. Reminded me of the old French Foreign Legion movies with the legionnaires roasting in isolated forts out in the middle of the Sahara desert.
I'm talking about proper police investigations resulting in arrests.
Any counter-terrorism plan that does not include or support police procedures is a deception.
Who has made more arrests on terrorism charges, the Americans or the Europeans? I'm not talking about gathering up all the Talibanis in Afghanistan, I'm talking about proper police investigations resulting in arrests.
How important are "failed states" and "terrorist supporting states" to acts like this?
Right after 9/11 I honstly thought going into Afghanistan and taking out Bin Laden's training camps did make me safer.
But what good does this do if you can just assemble a couple of backpacks in your flat in Madrid?
Anyway, that's the kind of question I'd like to see answered. With the Internet, encryption, loosely organized cells of terrorists in first world countries, informal financial networks, is the Al Qaeda terrorist training camp method last years war?
'Maybe now those anti-war Europeans will take the War on Terror seriously'
Has anyone at Fox News ever actually BEEN to Europe?
They've been taking it seriously for decades, which is why they didn't get drawn into the Iraq sideshow.
Why is the pardon of terrorist Orlando Bosch not by G.H.W. Bush not pointed out more often by the Left?
Surely this is a clear case of being "soft" on terrorism!
Perhaps it is due to fear of offending anti-Castro Hispanics, but I believe that this incident has far more significance than Willie Horton ever had, despite the fact that G.W. Bush was not the one to issue the pardon.
Indeed, asking the current President what he thinks about the former President's pardon of a terrorist would seem to be more than fair game.
Has anyone at Fox News ever actually BEEN to Europe?
Yes. But it's unlikely most of their targeted demographic has.
I think that another line we're going to start hearing from Fox News about the Madrid bombing is a subtle (or not so subtle) gloating that at least it's not happening here, that Ashcroft's assault on Civil Liberties has made us safer.
I'm not sure how to answer this other than to point out that Spain isn't exactly a good example of a country with a long tradition of defending Civil Liberties.
Please excuse my misstatement and allow me to correct it:
Why is the pardon of terrorist Orlando Bosch by G.H.W. Bush not pointed out more often by the Left?
I was in Paris in the mid-1990s when, because France recognized the Algerian secular military coup that stopped the Islamist rise to power and launched an Algerian civil war that France did its best to ignore and of which the United States was completely ignorant. It's still among the bloodiest conflicts of the 1990s, and the only Western reporter to give a damn about it was Robert Fisk. I digress. The French didn't start some kind of "clash of civilisations" bullshit. They ramped up police actions in France, assigned infantry squads to police patrols in the train stations, removed all the public trash cans from street corners and the metro. (By the time they replaced the cans with transparent plastic bags and rings to hold them, you could have buried a bomb under the trash piled where the poubelle used to be and no one would have known.) They steeled themselves against plane hijackings. They didn't freak out, in some measure because the French had been through this kind of thing before--1960 to 1962, the Algerian FLN and the OAS. The republic won. It was a mature response. Left to their own devices, the Spanish would have such a response, too. Why can't we have one? Even Patrick Buchanan points out that we should.
Gee, I have to learn to write. France recognized a coup that stopped Algerian democracy. The secular coup seized power to keep Islamists from being freely elected to it. (This little sequence, by the way, is the one I predicted for Iraq before we launched our attack last year.)
If you want to read a fine book on the original Franco-Algerian war, try A Savage War of Peace, a study of the classical colonial exit. For how Iraq might turn out, get those old Fisk articles from the 1990s.
Saltwater- Bosch walks the streets of Miami today, boasting of the Cubana airliner bombing.
Poppy pardoned Bosch to ingratiate slimeball Jeb with the white Cuban exiles, leading to his gov election, and thus the Fla 2000 theft.
Some people really need to type "paris metro bombings" (without the quotes) into Google.
> ...days before their national election.
> Anonymous
Yeah. They've arrest some indians and morocans. Not like the ETA to use outsiders.
"Has anyone at Fox News ever actually BEEN to Europe?
Yes. But it's unlikely most of their targeted demographic has."
Ha. Their target demongraphic has, however, read about Europe on Instapundit.com.
Oooh. That's an interesting typo.
Spanish police arrest five Muslims as crowds accuse Aznar of cover-up
http://www.sundayherald.com/40579
Norway’s Defence Research Establishment also uncovered documents linking al-Qaeda to the attacks. The documents said: “We must make use of the proximity to the elections in Spain in March next year. Spain can stand a maximum of two or three attacks before they will withdraw from Iraq.”
gary, good point.
Which is why I would think this is a particularly ripe tomato:
Ask the current President his opinion about the former President pardoning a braggadocious terrorist at the request of the Governor of Florida.
That's straightforward enough, is it not?
Ha. Their target demongraphic has, however, read about Europe on Instapundit.com.
I skimmed a bunch of Freeper sites and they're all up in arms about how Spaniards might just unalign themselves with Bush on the "war on terror."
But I was wondering. If you're a Freeper, what exactly do you want to come out of this? Who can you invade if it's Al Qaeda? Morocco? India? I mean, there's no way they can spin this into pushing for an invasion of Iran or Syria, can they?
And if Fox News tries any of the dopey France bashing crap on Spain, well, there's a huge Spanish speaking minority in the US who just might not appreciate it.
Looks like Kerry is well aware of Bosch. Found this through google:
"The terrorist activities of Orlando Bosch are fully documented in the book Deadly Secrets by Warren Hinkle and William Turner, who in turn drew their information from a Senate investigation led by Senator Kerry into the activities of the CIA."
Link is under "Home" (I think)
Maybe now the Europeans will get serious?
Like we have in Gitmo? Where the four British citizens we sent home were immediately released with no charges pressed? Serious like that?
As in bombing the shit out of a stone age country, rounding up people for no reason, detaining them without cause under no authority, and declaring we've "fought the war on terrorism" when we let bin Laden escape, re-invigorated the opium trade, returned war lords to power, trampled international law, introduced chaos, ruined innocent lives (if you don't prosecute 'em for crimes and get convictions, they are by definition "innocent").
yeah, we're taking this seriously.
You are exactly right.
Let's not fall for the Republican propaganda that says Bush is great at fighting terrorism. Bush is great at being belligerent.
Bush dropped the ball in the fight on terrorism. Osama bin Laden should have been the focus. By switching focus to Saddam Hussein, Bush has hurt us in the so-called "war on terror."
At home, Bush spends his time trying to scare us to death. We need a leader that does not depend on fear to stay in power. Give us a leader that offers hope: John Kerry.
DAMN STRAIGHT! Ask the GIGN how the French feel about taking terror seriously!
I think Big Media Matt is unfair to Aznar. One of the big reasons Aznar joined the coalition of the shilling was to be able to crack down on the ETA -- the carrot Bush gave Aznar was access (probably limited) to the Eschalon intelligence feed.
The success of this has been the arrests over the past few years of many high level members of the ETA.
Aznar's desire to immediately pin the Madrid bombings on ETA is in part wishful thinking and in part shrewd politics -- his party is running on a hard-line platform against the ETA.
Aznar's failure, perhaps, was to appreciate the effects of joining the Bushistas on the citizens of Morocco -- that muslim country to the south, which has several outstanding disputes with Spain.
I don't think -- given the success against the ETA, and the many arrests of "al Qaeda" agents in Spain -- that one can say, honestly, that Aznar did not take terror seriously.
As for the rest of Big Media Matt's comments -- I agree!!!
Faux news is propping up the meme that 'maybe now those anti-war Europeans will take the War on Terror seriously'
cornfed hick | Email | Homepage | 03.13.04 - 5:21 pm | #
Oh, you mean the badly-run, overly expensive one that goes gung-ho after the wrong targets, killing hundreds of our troops, thousands of their civilians, and generally pissing off everyone in the vicinity? That War on Terror? Yeah, 'bout time them furners got with the program.
Man, we've gotta win in November.
I first saw "The Battle of Algiers" years ago, and recently saw it again for a class. It may still be banned in France.
What the F**k? Apparently right wing French bashing and left wing French ignorance unite well in you, it seems, Elyse?
Do you have any clue what you are talking about?
Culero! Bring it on.
Previous anonymous post was mine and unvoluntarily anonymous.
For all of the above posters who think they understand the French situation because they have some second hand knowledge of the 1950s/1960s French-Algerian conflict and associated terrorism, I have some news.
After that specific issue was resolved in 1962, France (like most other European nations) was the victim of active terrorism in the 70s and 80s.
The main cause (as in Spain) was internal (France had its extreme left terror groups bombings, Italy the Brigade Rossi, Germany the Badher Meinhoff band, and of course Spain ETA). In addition, Lybia and some extreme Islamic groups (of which only a small part was in some ways associated with Algeria) were active in Paris in the 80s, killing by the dozens, and bombed a few planes (which the US governement has literally no interest in).
While it is true that Europe knows how to deal with terrorism, based on an exprience much deeper and longer than the US', references to the French-Algerian war are as relevant as references to the war between the states 150 years ago...
so like george pointing at sadaam for 9/11. aznar is pointing at ETA instead of al qaeda.
what is WRONG with these 'leaders'? it's not even like ancient history decades ago. it was 2001.
I lived in Germany during the Baader-Meinhof years, Europeans have been fighting terrorists for at least 30 years. And Fox thinks they need lessons from the Crawford Coward?
Has anyone at Fox News ever actually BEEN to Europe?
Of course not.
None of them speak Europish.
I used to work for the North American holding company of a British company. And, back in 1992, when one of the Brits from HQ visited, one of his main non work related comments the chap made to me was how quaint it was that we still had public trash dispensers in high-traffic areas. "We no longer have those at home. Too easy to drop a bomb in them."
They were also about five years ahead of us on road rage.
A.
"Who has made more arrests on terrorism charges, the Americans or the Europeans? I'm not talking about gathering up all the Talibanis in Afghanistan, I'm talking about proper police investigations resulting in arrests."
About a year ago, in the runup to war, I compiled a (since lost) list of arrests made in the "war on terrorism". The US had one - Jose Padilla. The French had quite a few. So did the Germans. Even Syria had one (but that was back before the US decided Syria were going to be the next Iraq).
In what gravel-paved cul-de-sac of the Trailer Park would you have to live to think that THIS incident will get Spain (or Europe, for that matter) to think about terrorism? Since, you know, they've never had to, like, um, deal with is before, and stuff.
Even the slightly better educated freepers think most terrorism is Islamic and happens in the middle East. [hint, think curry and islands]
O, the humanity.
That little cult's intellectual fig-leaf is withering.
Thank you. I lived in Berlin during the early seventies with the Baader-Meinhof gang and the Red Brigade pulling assassinations and robberies, and hell, how about that little event at the Munchen Olympics. I lived in Mannheim in the mid-eighties, and terrorists were still active.
People want to make the Spain incident out like,'oh wow,this will wake up the Europeans'. It took 9/11 to wake us up.
Oh, puhleeze??
Europe is still hoping for another excuse to resume the ethnic cleansing. Is it some coincidence the basques were fingered first?
"Let's not fall for the Republican propaganda that says ...By switching focus to Saddam Hussein, Bush has hurt us in the so-called "war on terror."
The PNAC plan was to install airbases in Iraq. Mission Accomplished, and Hussein is a pathetic minor figure in that plan. A former client of the current VP, trained and installed by Bushliar's father, abetted by (the mostly-ignorant) Ronald Reagan.
To imagine that it was personal is to be really fooled by the propaganda. It was corporate, military, press and intelligence: a very, very dangerous antidemocratic moment. We've had a coup, and people act like it's a Presidency!
The Spanish haven't had a coup of their press, and their corporations reflect their economy, no comparison to ours. They acted to protect their democracy, and wouldn't it be great if we did more than punched a Diebold clown machine in November?
Bush Lied...Impeach NOW!
Because traitors don't deserve elections.
How is it that if Bush was a leader, he knew nothing about the attacks prior to 9/11, but within hours of the towers burning, he knew exactly who had attacked us and where in this big world he was hiding?
IMPOSSIBLE. Wonder why no-one asked BUSH or CHENEY this questions. These guys aren't pyschic.
As far as the Spain elections, is this one of those "you are either with us or against us moments?" So the Spainards don't want a conservative ruling them and elect a compassionate person. To bush, having a compassionate person in charge means you support terrorist?
bite me
And the Europeans have all had experience of home-grown terrorism of one sort or another (Northern Ireland, ETA, and on). It's not even new to have Islamic terrorism in that part of the world. What's new is how the Americans are getting involved.
YES, YOU ARE RIGHT ATRIOS, I TOTALLY AGREE
YES, YOU ARE RIGHT ATRIOS, I TOTALLY AGREE
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