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Current Events » in reply to re: Defiance

Undecided
Mary Anne — (archived)

I said I was undecided.

So you did. Sorry. I assumed too much.

I believe you'll vote, though. ;)

In the case of Spain, they voted to heed the terrorists warning.

I'm not so sure about that.

To draw a cause/effect relationship between the bombings and the elections is not necessarily apt. If the turnout had been, say, 15-20% of the population, that would have been a more likely effect to chalk up to a cause rooted in terrorism.

I've been listening to commentary by Spanish political analysts (The News Hour tonight on PBS) and to interviews with Spanish voters (NPR this morning). Rather than portray it as a reaction to the bombings, the response was that Aznar's government tried to save its own political behind by trying to cover up or spin the al Qaida link. (The fact that Aznar acted without the support of the majority of Spanish voters when he sent troops to Iraq can only have made his party nervous after the bombing.) The sense I'm getting is that, by trying to deny, then minimize the al Qaida link for political advantage, Aznar's party blew it bigtime.

One of the people interviewed brought up an incident from 2002, the oil spill that resulted when the tanker Prestige sunk. Apparently Aznar's government tried to minimize that too, and it turned out to be an environmental disaster. In the eyes of some Spanish voters, he seems to have a reputation for being less than straight when faced with a crisis. When this crisis took the lives of 200 Spaniards, those left alive took offense.

The cause is Aznar's government's behavior in office. The effect is a defeat at the ballot box. A sovereign people have the perfect right, and a solemn duty, to throw out a government whose pattern of behavior has ticked them off.

As to whether, public statements notwithstanding, the new government will withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq immediately: the commentators on The News Hour remarked that, though the Socialists' platform included a plank against the Iraq war, don't look for an immediate withdrawal. They will likely wait to hear what the UN has to say. They recognize that withdrawal will not contribute to the stability of the region now that the deed is done.

Regards--
Mary Anne

PS-- I may not be a swing voter, but I live in a swing state.

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