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| Europe |
| Bombers’ vow: Spain will be inferno |
| 2004-04-05 |
| The Socialist will soon learn, appeasement doesn’t work. It only makes things worse A GROUP claiming responsibility for the Madrid bombings sent a fax to a newspaper warning it would turn Spain "into an inferno" unless the country halted its support for the US and withdrew its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The fax, a handwritten letter in Arabic, was received by the daily ABC on Saturday evening, just hours before five terror suspects blew themselves up in an apartment in Leganes, south of Madrid, to avoid police capture. The government believes the suicide blast killed two of the alleged ringleaders of last month’s Madrid train bombings, including one known as "the Tunisian", and four other suspects, leaving the core of the terror group either dead or in jail. Two or three suspects may have escaped before the blast, which also killed a special forces officer and wounded 15 other policeman. The letter to ABC was signed by Abu Dujana Al Afgani, Ansar Group, al-Qaeda in Europe, the same person who claimed responsibility for the March 11 bombings in a video found outside a Madrid mosque two days after the attacks. "Given that the Spanish state has continued with its injustices and aggressions against Muslims by sending fresh troops to Iraq and its intention to send more soldiers to Afghanistan," the letter gave a deadline of Sunday, April 4, to fulfil its demands of ending support for the United States and withdrawing troops from both countries. "If these demands are not met, we will declare war on you and we swear by Allah the highest and most sublime that we will convert your country into an inferno and your blood will flow like rivers," the letter added. In the letter, the group said that it had showed its force with the "blessed attacks of March 11" and the planting of a bomb along the high-speed railway line linking Madrid and the Seville last week, which did not explode. ABC cited unidentified sources in Spain’s National Intelligence Centre as saying the letter’s authenticity appeared "fairly credible". It said the language used in the letter was similar to that used in the video. The intelligence agency has linked the Ansar group to the Tunisian ringleader killed in the suicide blast Saturday evening. Ansar al-Islam is an Islamic extremist guerrilla group blamed for terrorist strikes in Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and Morocco. A respected French private investigator says Spanish police believe that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terror suspect with links to the Ansar group and al-Qaeda, masterminded the Madrid railway attacks. Many saw the bombings as a reprisal for the Spanish government’s support for the US-led invasion of Iraq. The opposition Socialist party, which had opposed the war along with most Spaniards, won a surprise victory in the elections. In one of its first statements, the party said it planned to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq by June 30 unless the United Nations took control of the situation there. The party later said it intended doubling its troop numbers in Afghanistan to 250 to show it was committed to fighting terrorism. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #26 JFM, I speculate that these next several months may be a watershed for the Spanish public. My guess is that June date for turnover is a set-up by Bush to force all the bad actors to lay their cards on the table before they can effectively plan attacks - 9/11 took years to plan. We will now go through a rapid period of rack-em and stack-em. I think that Spain is now a hard target and most of the cells are cleared out. What happens if Spain stands by bravely and Bush appears in Madrid to thank the Spanish people for their blood and steadfast support? Is that a step in changing the culture? I see the standoff in Korea being similarly cathartic for the Japanese. Maybe I'm just a sap who watched Miracle on Ice on too many times. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-04-05 9:59:44 PM |
| #25 Bombers’ vow: Spain will be inferno Great way to persuade other potential targets that they'll get off the hook by cooperating. This sort of counterproductive game plan is right up there with the fatwa against moderate clerics. The beast is devouring its young and simultaneously biting the hands that feed it. Always a winning strategy. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-05 9:54:54 PM |
| #24 JFM, Another problem is that the left controls the media and uses stalinist tactics to smear the right by accusing of fascism and of aspiring to dictatorship. Sure you aren't talking about the US? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-04-05 7:30:36 PM |
| #23 I guess the left will never learn. The vow to light up Span wasn't part of the deal. If Spain leaves Iraq and Afghanistan, Spain becomes a peaceful leftist little dhimmified country, and Al Qaeda leaves them alone. That was the deal. Unfortunately, now they have no one to complain to. AQ sure as heck won't listen, and until the day Spain reverses its decision to bug out, the US won't either. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-04-05 6:50:26 PM |
| #22 JFM, Excellent summary. I just add that the Spanish army did in fact fight very hard against Napoleon -just not very well. Unlike other European armies that lost to the French, and then signed apeace treaty, the Spanish army just kept resurrecting itself after each defeat and coming back for a rematch - which they almost always lost. This is not common knowledge, the guerillas always got most of the press. The Spanish army does remember it though. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2004-04-05 5:58:46 PM |
| #21 I only see the reactions in Spanish blogs and for now I see many LLL posts so I think most people still oppose war (don't forget however that only a minority of Spaniards have net access and most of them don't have the kind of cheap connectivity, read ADSL, needed to wander in blogs). But I also think that a number of Spaniards are now repenting of voting the Socialists not about the war but about economy and concessions to separatists (I am really, really afraid Zapatero will allow the implosion of Spain in order to gain the support ofbthe separatists). The questionning of following France is not so much a generational thing that a political thing: the people who want Spain following its own path, against the "let's go to the UN, let's Europe rule Spain, let's the independentists have their way" people. For Spaniards opening their eyes to terrorism, my generatin grew during the sixties, reading the adventures of Captain Thunder (a mix of crusader and Arthurian hero) so I think they could open the eyes. I am more pessimistic about the ones who grew during the late 70s and the 80s who had thir teachers and every TV star brainwash them into "piss, piss, piss, err I men peace" pacifism and edonism. Another problem is that the left controls the media and uses stalinist tactics to smear the right by accusing of fascism and of aspiring to dictatorship. Now everything who goes one way, ends going the other way at a point, specially when Spaniards will begin to taste the bitter fruits riped by the Socialist Party. |
| Posted by: JFM 2004-04-05 5:32:08 PM |
| #20 franquist pacifism Damn fine, JFM. Weird but true. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-04-05 5:20:07 PM |
| #19 Yeah, Zappy, how's that appeasement thing working out for ya'? Have you laid in a supply of brown underwear yet? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-04-05 5:09:32 PM |
| #18 JFM - super summary! Thanks a lot. Anonymous3991 mentioned that in Portugal even some left-wingers are expressing shock at the consequences of the Spanish election - do you think that feeling might be being mirrored in Spain itself? You mentioned the Spanish questioning their following of France - is this perhaps a generational thing? Or are today's youngsters cut from the same political cloth as their parents? I can only hope that the continuation of terror attacks has opened some more Spanish eyes to the true nature of their enemy. Thanks again for the analysis! |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-04-05 4:37:19 PM |
| #17 Bulldog I will give a background on Spanish mindset. 1) After Spain simmered into decadence the Spanish Army suffered defeat after defeat with the basic Spanish soldier finding not only that he was hoplessly outgunned (in 1898, Spain fielded wooden ships against the US navy), outequipped and outled but that going in the army meant to be badly fed and be abused by officers (think in an Ouzbek conscript in the Soviet Army). End result has been very low prestige for an army who collected defeats and little enthousiasm for going into wars. 2) For all of the XIXth century the favourite past-time of Spanish generals has been staging coups and fighting civil wars. Compound this with repression of strikes and of course Franco's dictatorship and the fact Spain hasn't been under danger of invasion since 1815 (and it was the guerillas not the Army who fought Napoleon) and you get vast sectors of the society, specially in the left who see the army more as a repressive corps and a danger as a genuine instrument of defence and of projection of Spain's power. 3) While Franco's propaganda exalted Spanish war heroes and spanish army it also insisted strongly on the untold length of time where Spain had been at peace and created what I call franquist pacifism. I remember when Franco died, a woman (who looked poor working class) interviewed and saying he hoped "much peace and much order". In addition when democracy arrived there was little in the right who was untinted of associating with Franco so the left had a field day for imposing its values like multiculturalism and pacifism (from the kind who didn't target the Red Army only ours). Combine this leftist pacifism with the indoctrination under Franco about peace and you get a spirit who would have made Chamberlain look blood thirty. I remember a teenager interviewed in 1986 telling: "If there is a war, we just have to not go, so no war". That is why when I heard about the bombings in Madrid and that the Socialist Party was trying to exploit I thought of that girl and I knew the Socialist would win: the Spanish who valued courage above everything, who resisted two hundred years to Rome, who set Don Quijote as an ideal, who told "Spain prefers honor without ships to ships without honor" and who resisted to Napoleon are no more. What remains is a bunch of "flower power" people who don't even want to go through the sacrifice involved in having children. Natural appeasers. 4) The USA are not popular in Spain: rencors about the 1898 war (the Spaniards DIDN't blow the "Maine"), about bad American behaviour in South America, about Spain being treated as a pariah after WWII (in right wing circles), about aid to Franco after 195x (in left wing circles) and of course europeism who sees America as the enemy, the fact that even the non-communist left is permeable to the "revolutionary" rhetoric from Cuba and similar places made for many people hostile to America and few people who felt they owed something to America: Spain didn't owe it a libertaion from the Germans and its geographical position made the danger from Soviet Union look a distant one so no gratitude for Cold War. Now there are people (look at http://iberiannotes.blogspot.com for a summary in English of what happens in Spain) who understand that Islamic terrorism threatens all of us but they are minority, probably even between right wing people. However there is an interresting development: Spanish people have ever had a BIG inferiority complex toward France. EVERYTHING in France was deemed infinitely superior to its Spanish counterpart. So it was a big surprise that the other day in http://libertaddigital.com I found an article questionning what Spain could learn from France and scorning French economy and its leadership in Europe and the interest for Spain to back a country who had ver backstabbed her at every step.. Having Spaniards lose their admiration for France says many things about Chirac's performance. |
| Posted by: JFM 2004-04-05 3:56:51 PM |
| #16 I'm confused. I thought Dante was Italian. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-04-05 3:38:57 PM |
| #15 Well, tu3031, he could adopt Yemen's "answer" and pay tribute. The only subsequent question is whether he could convince the Spanish to follow him into dhimmitude... |
| Posted by: .com 2004-04-05 3:33:17 PM |
| #14 Looks like you might have to fight them after all, Zappy. Like it or not. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-04-05 3:24:53 PM |
| #13 Looks like its not long until Euro children (the few there are these days) will become Janissaries. |
| Posted by: Spot 2004-04-05 1:31:24 PM |
| #12 Anonymous3991 Muito Obrigado! |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2004-04-05 1:20:53 PM |
| #11 JFM, A3991. Way to go. Your nationwide now. (thats ZZ Top for being on top of things) |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-04-05 12:58:27 PM |
| #10 3991 - pulling out 1300 troops, only putting 250 into Afghanistan. ---- Bulldog - he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, -- Now Mr. Bean will know what it feels like to be an American...... |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-04-05 12:57:24 PM |
| #9 Anonymous3991, your contribution's very welcome! Please keep posting. When you say Zapatero's rhetoric is going down, you mean decreasing, right? How's he responding to demands the Spain pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, now? I think he pledged more troops to Afghan before these new demands, didn't he? The best way to try to regain a perception of the Spanish possessing cojones, and take the fight back to the Islamists (the only way to deal with this sort of thing, and the way Zapatero has very publicly and very consistently rejected), would seem to me, be to go back on his pledge to pull out if Iraq. How do you think public opinion might react to that? Of course, now, he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, do pretty much anything... |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-04-05 12:40:08 PM |
| #8 I am from Portugal to tell the true i dont follow Spanish inside politics closely but i can say Zapatero rethoric is going down, the Afeghanistan up troops card is one of the signs. Here in Postugal even in some Socialists circles is a low level talk that Spanish election results were the worst possible. |
| Posted by: Anonymous3991 2004-04-05 12:27:57 PM |
| #7 Thanks, JFM. Would be much appreciated. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-04-05 12:10:15 PM |
| #6 Bulldog I grew in Spain and speak fluent spanish, I will post about it later. |
| Posted by: JFM 2004-04-05 12:02:49 PM |
| #5 SEE! Appeasement does work! Oh...wait...... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-04-05 11:56:23 AM |
| #4 Wow. AlQ is more emboldened than ever, since Spain showed they are afraid. Wonder how they're feeling now. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2004-04-05 11:11:27 AM |
| #3 So, Zappy, how's the truce with the terrorists holding up? |
| Posted by: GK 2004-04-05 11:00:35 AM |
| #2 Shame we don't currently have a Spanish commentator posting at Rantburg. Some inside info on political developments in Spain would be most welcome. Any Iberian lurkers out there? |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-04-05 10:55:50 AM |
| #1 It won't matter if they do exactly as told. The next demand will be for money, or "religous tolerance" or some other nonsense. |
| Posted by: flash91 2004-04-05 10:26:17 AM |