A couple of points

by John Q on March 15, 2004

The warblogosphere has gone into a predictably frenzy over the Spanish election results. In my previous post, I argued, from an antiwar position, that it was a mistake to interpret the result as punishment for Aznar taking a prominent stance in the struggle against terrorism. Now, following Micah’s advice I’ll present a couple of points that might be more convincing to those on the other side of the fence from me (or at least the subset who are open to argument of any kind).

First, it seems to be universally agreed, and was certainly believed by the PP government, that it would have electorally beneficial had it turned out that the bomb was planted by ETA. But the Aznar government was notable for its hardline stance against ETA. If the Spanish people were the cowards painted by their erstwhile admirers, this would make no sense.

Second (as far as I know), there has been no suggestion from the Socialists that Spanish troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan[1]. If the Spanish people are terrified of bin Laden and want to appease him, it seems strange to show this through continued backing of attempts to capture or kill him and prevent the restoration of the only government that’s ever openly embraced him.

fn1. Of course, the same point applies to most opponents of the war in Iraq. The great majority supported the overthrow of the Taliban. Of the minority who opposed the Afghanistan war, most did not do so on prudential grounds but from a position of routine opposition to US foreign policy (eg Chomsky).

{ 38 comments }

1

Abiola Lapite 03.15.04 at 11:47 am

Nevertheless, the interpretation of events the perpetrators of the attack will come away with is that Europeans can be bombed into throwing out their governments and replacing them with more pliable leaders.

Zapatero’s announcement of his intention to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq is a gigantic green light to future terrorist outrages. “Bomb us and we’ll cave!” is the message it sends, and the price to be paid is more such attacks in the runups to future elections. One doesn’t have to like Aznar or be a Bush-supporter to think this a terrible development.

2

Alan 03.15.04 at 12:09 pm

A better interpretation is: ‘Bomb us and we will not be distracted into military adventures that detract from the kind of hard criminal work that roots out terrorist networks, the kind of routine criminal effort that involves connecting dots rather than going to war.’

The Iraq war has thus far achieved none of its promised benefits. Rejecting it was the right thing for the Spanish people to do. Lying about it to try and retain office was poor ethics and worse tactics.

3

enthymeme 03.15.04 at 12:16 pm

Alan, what you say doesn’t change the fact that the message is still “bomb us”.

4

ionfish 03.15.04 at 12:35 pm

I like ‘Bomb us and more people than anticipated will turn out to vote’, myself.

5

Dave F 03.15.04 at 12:40 pm

Alan, how is criminal (police) action going to deal with guerrilla warfare waged by ideological fanatics? You cannot stop a determined presidential assassin by rounding up a lot of suspects, because they are legion. Likewise determined terrorists. Did police action stop the IRA? No, it simply shifted its focus to the British mainland, which is too unwieldy to police against skilled operatives.

This is a war and it can only be won by denying the enemy all territory and logistical support, and, of course, killing its key leadership.

6

cs 03.15.04 at 12:53 pm

“Bomb us and we’ll cave!” is the message any attempt to seek alternative answers sends, warns Abiola Lapite. In a parallel universe, I hear exhortations to muslim populations by AQ warriors along the same lines, as the world goes completely mad, and ol’ bin Laden strokes his beard and smiles.

7

Juan G. 03.15.04 at 1:06 pm

I am a Spanish citizen who voted for the Socialists (as I indicated in an earlier thread). I am glad that we finally dumped the PP and I am glad that the margin was clear. I was outraged that the PP jumped on the Madrid massacre as a blanket justification for all their policies, domestic and foreign, but that didn’t affect my vote because I had already cast it in an advance poll.

Still, this election leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth and I am greatly disappointed by Zapatero’s quick promise of withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq. We should not have supported the Iraq military adventure (in fact no Spanish troops were sent to fight) but supporting the creation of a non-Saddam regime, hopefully a democratic and responsible one, is an entirely laudible mission.

But most of the bitter taste in my mouth comes from the perception that Al Qaeda won the election for the Socialists. I hope it isn’t the case, but the fact is that the PP were ahead in the pre-election polls as late as last week (this despite our overwhelming opposition to the Iraq adventure), and unless the PP’s mishandling of the bombings’ aftermath is what caused the major shift, this cannot be a good thing. It means, as others have pointed out, that we have sent a very encouraging message to terrorists. We can argue that the exact causes of the electoral shift are still unknown and probably involve many factors, but the message that Al Qaeda and Islamists will take from all this will be quite simple: massive terrorism can sway European voters to change their government to one less hostile to their goals. My only hope is that Zapatero can quickly make it clear to the Islamists that they are very, very wrong.

8

Andrew Brown 03.15.04 at 1:39 pm

“This is a war and it can only be won by denying the enemy all territory and logistical support, and, of course, killing its key leadership.”

If that’s true, we have lost it already. So I hope very much it is false. Otherwise, we are committed to an open-ended occupation of the entire Middle East, or else the support of puppet regimes there. Leaving aside the morality, I hardly think that’s feasible.

9

No Preference 03.15.04 at 1:47 pm

I am not sure that I have seen evidence that anyone anywhere is in favor of “appeasing” Osama bin Laden. What some of us say is that if certain policies are wrong, we should change them whether or not bin Laden favors them as well. People all over the world feel a natural repugnance towards things like the Madrid bombings. To disabuse terrorists of any notion that bin Laden has won a victory in Spain, all the Socialists need to do is fight al Qaeda sanely – not by launching illegal wars or depicting a struggle between civilizations.

10

Matt McIrvin 03.15.04 at 1:59 pm

So the desire not to send the wrong message to terrorists trumps everything?

This reasoning works both ways. Suppose you believe Aznar (or Bush) to be a bad person and a liar, but you vote for him anyway so as not to send the message “bomb us and we’ll cave”. Doesn’t that behavior send the message “bomb us and the overreaction will cause us to destroy ourselves”? (Which may or may not be a strategy in al-Qaeda’s playbook, but is pretty much the classical theory of left-wing/anarchist terrorism, from what little I understand on the subject.)

Maybe we had better vote for the people we actually want to lead us, instead of basing our behavior on theories of what will go on in the deranged mind of some terrorist.

11

No Preference 03.15.04 at 2:02 pm

Alan, how is criminal (police) action going to deal with guerrilla warfare waged by ideological fanatics?

Al Qaeda isn’t practicing guerilla war, but terrorism. The best way to combat terrorism is in fact through police work.

You cannot stop a determined presidential assassin by rounding up a lot of suspects, because they are legion. Likewise determined terrorists.

Right. You need intelligence above all, which means that you need cooperation from lots of people. Do you get this by behaving in ways that most of the world rejects? No, you do not.

Did police action stop the IRA? No, it simply shifted its focus to the British mainland, which is too unwieldy to police against skilled operatives.

It’s widely acknowledged that the breakthrough in Northern Ireland came when the British government abandoned reliance on a solution based mainly on force, acknowledged Sinn Fein as a negotiating partner (however hard this may have been) and sought a political solution. I don’t suggest negotiation with Osama bin Laden, but I do think that recognition that the US policies he opposes are in fact disliked by most of the people in the Middle East is highly in order.

This is a war and it can only be won by denying the enemy all territory and logistical support, and, of course, killing its key leadership.

The Spanish bombings may well have been planned in Spain, or in Europe at least. What was Spain supposed to do, invade itself?

12

Matt McIrvin 03.15.04 at 2:03 pm

…And, yes, all political sides use this kind of specious reasoning. In fall 2001 I read so many Guardian columns protesting the invasion of Afghanistan on the grounds that “this is exactly what Osama bin Laden wants” that I was driven to imagine that somebody had possession of an Osama bin Laden Want-O-Scope.

13

No Preference 03.15.04 at 2:16 pm

. . .I was driven to imagine that somebody had possession of an Osama bin Laden Want-O-Scope.

Yes, I have one.

14

maurinsky 03.15.04 at 2:29 pm

Maybe it’s just me, but I always assumed that the terrorists want to bomb us no matter what we do. Which makes it a waste of time to speculate on what the terrorists want.

Perhaps if the Bush administration had seriously pursued OBL and Al Qaida instead of diverting resources to Iraq (including using the OSP to fluff up the “evidence” of Iraqi WMDs), this bombing in Madrid would not have happened.

15

Russell L. Carter 03.15.04 at 2:37 pm

“Zapatero’s announcement of his intention to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq is a gigantic green light to future terrorist outrages. “Bomb us and we’ll cave!” is the message it sends,”

Why does the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq have anything to do with the “war” against OBL?

1. There were no meaningful connections between the Iraq regime and OBL.

2. The only meaningful presence was not under the control of the Iraq regime, and the US declined to take action (Sebastion can wax eloquent here how the mighty US Army was intimidated to paralysis by a terrorist concentration larger than a camp)

3. Though I doubt they’ll do it, the standard craven Republican response is available to the socialists: withdrawing these troops concentrates forces where they’re needed, on the front lines.

I’m afraid Abiola’s analysis reveals that still, contrary to all evidence, he believes that the US government’s argument for the war in Iraq circa 1 year ago is pristine, inerrant, inviolable.

That’s crazy. People, we live in democracies. It does not follow that the existence of OBL logically forces a vote for the most reactionary election candidate. Do I have to point out that the fact that there is a *choice* is the most important difference between what we have, and what OBL wants?

16

Jack 03.15.04 at 2:45 pm

Abiola:
“Zapatero’s announcement of his intention to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq is a gigantic green light to future terrorist outrages. “Bomb us and we’ll cave!” is the message it sends”
And withdrawing troops from Saudi Arabia, one of the few things we know OBL did request, on the other hand…

More seriously surely the last thing we want to do is let terrorists dominate our electoral agendas and we shouldn’t give a monkey’s what signal we are sending them.

dave f.
“This is a war and it can only be won by denying the enemy all territory and logistical support, and, of course, killing its key leadership.”

Please apply the same tests to your call for some kind of war that you do for treating it as criminal.

17

Conrad Barwa 03.15.04 at 2:48 pm

First, it seems to be universally agreed, and was certainly believed by the PP government, that it would have electorally beneficial had it turned out that the bomb was planted by ETA. But the Aznar government was notable for its hardline stance against ETA. If the Spanish people were the cowards painted by their erstwhile admirers, this would make no sense.

I guess the unpopularity of the war combined with perhaps a sense that the govt was too quick to blame ETA might have had something to do with this. One thing that impressed the hell out of me was the mass response on the streets and demonstrations in favour of democracy after the attacks; I am unsure what they could said to have accomplished and it is possible to argue that they don’t mean much in themselves but for a nation to come out with this after a major terrorist attack, impresses me greatly. The high turnout must also have something to do with it as it tends to go against incumbents and Centre-Right parties.

Second (as far as I know), there has been no suggestion from the Socialists that Spanish troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan1. If the Spanish people are terrified of bin Laden and want to appease him, it seems strange to show this through continued backing of attempts to capture or kill him and prevent the restoration of the only government that’s ever openly embraced him.

This makes sense; I would also think that there might not be an opposition to giving backing to a UN-sanctioned force for Iraq or other forms of assistance to an elected Iraqi govt.

18

Juan G. 03.15.04 at 2:49 pm

Matt:

Maybe we had better vote for the people we actually want to lead us.

That isn’t an argument; it is a simplistic slogan that disguises a very troubling situation. It appears from pre-election polls that most of my countrymen (to my great dismay) were going to give the PP another term in power. I had already voted for the Socialists (in an advance poll) so clearly the Madrid massacre had no effect on my voting intentions. Indeed, had I still to vote Sunday, the PP’s handling of the bombings’ aftermath would simply have reconfirmed my choice. But it is equally clear that the bombings did affect many other voters, and I suspect not in a very rational way. Had there been say 2-3 weeks for the dead to be properly buried and the parties’ positions to be made clear, the voters’ message would also be clear. But when demonstrators march witth signs blaming the deaths in Madrid on our presence in Iraq (our soldiers were not sent to fight) with the deaths in Madrid [http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040314/photos_ts/mdf496065], it is the duty of rational Socialists to set the record straight. I am very glad that Zapatero won, but unless he makes it clear to the Islamists that his victory is not theirs, it will be a hollow, even dangerous, triumph.

19

Abiola Lapite 03.15.04 at 2:54 pm

“Why does the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq have anything to do with the “war” against OBL?”

Perhaps you ought to ask the individual who made the proclamation that the attack on Spain was in retaliation for supporting America’s invasion of Iraq?

20

Russell L. Carter 03.15.04 at 3:03 pm

“Perhaps you ought to ask the individual who made the proclamation that the attack on Spain was in retaliation for supporting America’s invasion of Iraq?”

If he is credible, it’s rather difficult to evade the conclusion that invading Iraq wasn’t an effective strategy for eradicating Al Qaida, no?

21

cs 03.15.04 at 3:09 pm

If I’m reading the warbloggers right, their conclusion seems clear: we need to elect a new Spanish people.

22

Rajeev Advani 03.15.04 at 4:07 pm

No, cs. You’re reading the warbloggers wrong, in a manner so common and hackneyed it’s barely humorous anymore. It is possible to oppose the decision of an electorate without opposing the concept of democracy.

Warblogger reaction is more mixed than you’d imagine. The harder right think the Spanish electorate is “appeasing” al Qaeda. Liberal hawks think they’re not, and are just being short-sighted. Others think their decision was based on Aznar’s other problems.

At any rate, there are two things the warbloggers agree on:

1) Iraq was not irrelevent to fighting terrorism (I’ll defend that to the grave)

2) What happened in Spain is not a good development.

23

Iain J Coleman 03.15.04 at 4:42 pm

Iraq was not irrelevent to fighting terrorism (I’ll defend that to the grave)

Who’s grave? There are many thousands, and rising.

24

Andrew Boucher 03.15.04 at 4:52 pm

“Iraq was not irrelevent to fighting terrorism…”

Well maybe. On the other hand, can we all agree that now Iraq *is* relevant to fighting terrorism?

25

marky 03.15.04 at 5:26 pm

If you’re going to credit AQ with victory whenever they influence elections, then they already scored victory in 2002 when the Republicans were able to use 9/11 to turn an evenly divided populace slightly in their favor.
This whole business of basing your decisions on what the terrorists would think is the real cave-in. Get rid of a bad leader like Aznar and a horrible leader like Bush and AQ will be worse off.

26

marky 03.15.04 at 5:30 pm

I do heartily agree that Iraq was relevant to the war on terror—it was a huge plus for AQ, as if Allah himself had inspired Bush to become the number one recruiter for AQ by fighting in Iraq, while at the same time leaving Bin Laden alone for two years, and ignoring the nuclear Walmart in Pakistan. OH yes, the war was relevant!

27

roger 03.15.04 at 5:57 pm

The pseudo-Churchill crowd always makes me laugh. How about this for appeasement: your forces have already broken the state that protects your enemy; you have battled him once in a very inaccessble place in the mountains; you have failed to kill him; so you withdraw, let him go, decide not to worry about him any more, make up a bogus connection that you don’t even believe with another, vulnerable power; and as time passes, you invent stories about how you’ve destroyed 3/4ths of his forces.
I’d call that feebleness masquerading as strength. The ‘brilliant military work” of Rumsfeld, et al., in invading Iraq seems to have rather neglected the forces in their rear, constituted by Al Qaeda — but of course, they never believed their lies, anyway. They knew there was no connection between Iraq and Osama bin Laden. They knew that was trash for public consumption.
Result: the network has ramified. The supposed leaders of the free world, Bush, et al., have left the people of the free world more vulnerable, not less, to terrorist attack. When the people respond by kicking their hind ends out of office, it is considered appeasement.
No, it isn’t appeasement. It is being fired. For incompetence.
When Carter bungled the hostages, the networks all made it into a count: day number x of the hostage crisis.
By my count, it is day number 931 since Bush promised to bring Osama in dead or alive. So where is he?

28

Rajeev Advani 03.15.04 at 6:23 pm

The “relevancy” debate belongs in Quiggin’s other post. Sorry to disinter it here.

Coleman: Opposing a war should be as difficult and heart-wrenching as supporting one. Yes there are graves, yes I’ve seen the pictures on Robert Fisk’s website, but I still believe the alternatives were worse. Further, most of the disastrous predictions made pre-war have thankfully been discarded as exagerration. As such I could turn your logic on you, but only hypothetically: had Saddam remained in power how many graves under his rule later would you renounce your opposition to this war?

Boucher: I completely agree, and that’s why I think the decision of Spain’s socialist government, while not appeasement, was short-sighted.

Marky: Pakistan is a tight-rope act, and you should be grateful the Bush administration approached that country with more prudence than it approached Iraq. I too am disappointed in the Bush administration’s reconstruction of Afghanistan — but reconstructing Afghanistan is not mutually exclusive with invading Iraq, unless you really believe the US is short on resources for these all-important endeavors (which it is not). The US is not reconstructing Afghanistan because it can’t summon the ideological willpower — this is where Bush’s thinking is constipated. But none of this disputes the fact that the Iraq war was just.

Finally, I agree that al Qaeda has come to Iraq. It’s the “sinking ship” analogy, and it’s a good thing for the war on terror. Now I have to cut that last thought short… phone call

29

S.A. Smith 03.15.04 at 6:39 pm

Despite what the bush administration wants me to believe and despite what bush’s critics want me to believe, I think bin laden is most likely dead; if he isn’t, what would explain his sudden video shyness following the bombing of tora bora? I don’t understand these feeble audio recordings and letters.

Did someone break his video recorder?

There might be another explanation but the only one that makes any sense is that he is so frail, ill or injured that he doesn’t want to appear this way to his enemies or followers.

30

roger 03.15.04 at 7:20 pm

Dear S.A.

I believe Osama bin L. was sick pre 9/11, so the U.S. coming for him or not would have changed the date of his meeting with his maker very little. Should we then have let nature takes its course, and not responded to 9/11?
I don’t think so.

The symbolism of Osama is integral to the morale of the terrorist network. Personally, I think it is now too late to undo the symbolic message encoded by Osama’s survival, and the inability of the U.S. to exert its full force to get him. That message is that martyrdom and earthly success can both be satisfied in this kind of warfare. Nobody thinks that Saddam Hussein, in hiding, was targeting the enemy — but he was a symbolic prize, and his capture, I think, shifted the landscape in Iraq –towards democracy, insofar as the Shi’ites were able, after his capture, to articulate their desire for early elections, etc.

One ignores symbols in war at one’s peril.

31

Hi 03.15.04 at 7:56 pm

I think Maurnaisky (?spelling) is right. Terrorists will attack us no matter what we do or don’t do. It just depends on who they are mad at (or can attack easily) at that moment. Trying to analyze mad people for motives is mad itself.

32

WillieStyle 03.15.04 at 8:05 pm

Opposing a war should be as difficult and heart-wrenching as supporting one.

No it should not. I supported the war in Iraq at the time, but even I have the sense to know that the burden should rest on those in favor of war to advocate it. In any case, talking about defending the decision to go to war to your grave from behind your computer is way too fucking easy. Support or opposse the war. It’s your business. But leave such dramatic proclamtions to those actually putting their lives on the line.

reconstructing Afghanistan is not mutually exclusive with invading Iraq, unless you really believe the US is short on resources for these all-important endeavors (which it is not).

Do you know what a “Stop Loss” order is?

33

Rajeev Advani 03.15.04 at 9:14 pm

Williestyle: You took my remark out of context. I’m defending “to the grave” not the decision to go to war, but the fact that the war is not irrelevant to combating terrorism. Now that you mention it though, I’d defend the former assertion similarly.

I strongly disagree that the moral burden of war should rest solely on the pro-war camp. Those that oppose a war are burdened with the consequences of their actions as well, and those may be less, equally or more disastrous. To take an extreme example, if those that opposed Vietnam invading Cambodia in 1979 had their way, Cambodia would have remained under Khmer Rouge control. So don’t tell me that the anti-war crowd needn’t be morally burdened with decisions of war and peace. Only the ignorant and nihilistic can claim to be free from heart-wrenching decisions.

And no, I don’t have to leave dramatic proclamations to others if I mean what I say, and I mean what I say. To the grave, then.

(On a side-note, I’d like to point out that “to the grave” is a common phrase used for emphasis, and isn’t always meant literally… just checking)

34

WillieStyle 03.15.04 at 10:55 pm

And no, I don’t have to leave dramatic proclamations to others if I mean what I say, and I mean what I say. To the grave, then.

Talk is cheap rajeev.
Talk is very, very cheap.

35

Rajeev Advani 03.16.04 at 12:32 am

Talk is cheap if you ignore the fact that the war on terror is as much an ideological war as it is a physical one — both of which are crucial.

Thankfully though, talk is not cheap, and so there are ways of making and emphasizing a point that do not require strapping on an AK-47. I’ll that to the grave too, thank you.

36

WillieStyle 03.16.04 at 3:57 am

hankfully though, talk is not cheap, and so there are ways of making and emphasizing a point that do not require strapping on an AK-47.

I’m sure Al Queda are shaking in their bad-guy boots at the prospect of facing down your words of mass destruction.
[Yawn]

37

Dave F 03.16.04 at 11:07 am

No Preference, the word “territory” now seems ill-chosen. What I mean is guerrilla territory – as commonly accepted, in the heart of communities. Fish in an ocean is the traditional terminology.

By bringing about democratic changes and the decline of tyrants in the Middle East, that territory is systematically denied to people like al-Qaeda.

Terrorism is indeed a tactic of guerrilla warfare, as I would have thought you were aware. Of course you want to deny it is warfare, but ETA, IRA, and others haver used it to wage war against the state.

This notion that somehow this is just a criminal act, once again regrettably stated by Javier Solana today, seeks to divorce terrorism from its political and ideological motivation in order to pretend it can be policed. I

t can’t and the geo-political strategy is demonstrating that fighting terror may not be cheap, but it’s a damn sight cheaper than before the Iraq war, because the Pakistanis, the Saudis and to some extent the Indonesians are perforce helping squeeze out the jihadists in their territories.

What put the IRA off to a large degree (I’m not saying you are entirely wrong about the attrition) was the negative effect of the Real IRA Omagh incident and other atrocities on civil support at home and abroad.

38

Rajeev Advani 03.16.04 at 5:05 pm

I’m sure Al Queda are shaking in their bad-guy boots at the prospect of facing down your words of mass destruction.

They won’t know what hit them; all their followers will denounce bin Laden in favor of my remorseless logic. Certainly my WMD are more effective than those found by Bush.

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