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Terrorist Attack in Spain - Over 60 dead

Originally posted by Rik
You really asking what the difference is? Or are you just being flippant?

The Actions of the Bush Admin:
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Perhaps we look at things differently. There currently are people wanting to harm others. You think you are safer because you have built a big wall to keep those people out. I think you are merely delaying those people getting in. I think to make the world safer you need to stop those people wanting to harm you. I believe the term used by your president was hearts and minds.
 
Some Basque say it wasn't the ETA

Mind you, I'm a little puzzled by this:

Julen Etxevarria, the editor of the Basque radio and TV service EiTB, voiced the questions of many.

"I think this is too big, too organised, too much to be Eta," he told BBC News Online.

He added that an attack without warning on civilians, rather than on political or military targets, is not an Eta hallmark.
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Was the Barcelona supermarket a military target?
 
Mr. manifesto, ETA attacks lots of targets:
- Military and policial targets.
- Politics, judges, journalists, intellectuals (those who opose ETA too much for their taste) and also the royal family.
- Bussinesmen (those who don't pay the terrorism taxes)
- Public transports: railway, several times, and roads. They usually set bombs on the way to cut the way, although a few months they put a bomb in a train.

The history of hypercor massacre (the supermarket) is quite complex. ETA warned about hypercor bomb, but the treat was not taken seriously.However, the important lesson to learn there is that ETA lost a lot of popular support after that, and from that point they avoided civil massacres in order to keep their politic weight.

ETA announced yesterday that they are not the authors of Madrid attack, but the government has been trying to keep the ETA hypothesis against all evidence. People here has reacted with a lot of hatred against the local nationalisms, in a way I have never seen before. I am hearing people asking for the death of PNV leaders (the moderate nationalist party of the basques, which represent their majority). A police have killed a basque neighbor in Bilbao this afternoon because he refused to put a spanish flag in his shop.
Our government is totally crazy! IMO they are being near criminal. :(
 
I believe that the ETA has been a thorn in the side of Spain for quite some time, they do engage in bombings, and other acts of terrorism. The difference between their normal mode of action which is disruptive and what happened to Spain on 3/11 are of totally different character. It was not amateurish but focused and military style attacks. There may be a connection between the stepped up level of attack as an indication of cooperation between Al Quida and the separatists, but it is generally out of character. I think Al Quida selected soft targets with the eye on maximum of causalities. This remains all supposition for the time being.

I offer my condolences to the people of Spain on their tragic loss.
 
Peskanov said:
Mr. manifesto, ETA attacks lots of targets:
However, the important lesson to learn there is that ETA lost a lot of popular support after that, and from that point they avoided civil massacres in order to keep their politic weight.
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That's not true... they have tried to cause civil massacres, for example this Christmas in Chamartín station in Madrid, and what do you think the 500kg of explosives intercepted two weeks ago were for?

People here has reacted with a lot of hatred against the local nationalisms, in a way I have never seen before. I am hearing people asking for the death of PNV leaders (the moderate nationalist party of the basques, which represent their majority)
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This is an exageration, there may be some tiny minority doing this, but I haven't heard anyone in the big demonstration in Madrid attack the PNV leaders. And by the way calling the PNV, a party full of hatred and even racism from their beginning in the XIX century, moderated is, well I don't know... wrong.
 
That's not true... they have tried to cause civil massacres, for example this Christmas in Chamartín station in Madrid, and what do you think the 500kg of explosives intercepted two weeks ago were for?
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I think the same as the antiterrorist police thinks. That they wanted to put it there, warn about it, and cause fear in all us.
This is an exageration,
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the PNV, a party full of hatred and even racism from their beginning in the XIX century,
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Thanks for proving my point.

BTW, you should try to meet a few nationalist basques and catalonians. You know, there is a real world out there, with real people. Demonizing the adversary is easy, but it wil not solve any of our problems.
 
What is the attitude of people in the Basque area, of the simple Basques I mean towards ETA?

Do they support them? Do they approve of the <strike through>military</strike through> terrorist action or they object to it? Do the rest of the Spaniards hate the ordinary Basques today?

edited to change a word. I read too much BBC.com
 
Peskanov said:

BTW, you should try to meet a few nationalist basques and catalonians. You know, there is a real world out there, with real people. Demonizing the adversary is easy, but it wil not solve any of our problems.
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OK, I recognize I have not been very objective in that post. I know a lot of nationalist basques and catalonians and a lot of galician ones. I think natioanlist claims are perefectly legitimate and democratical, though I don't agree with them. I don't blame neither the PNV nor any catalonian nationalist party for this and I don't hate them, if I gave that impression in my last post I'm sorry and I take back what I said.


If I gave the impression of putting the PNV at the same level as HB/EH/ETA... I'm sorry. They are light years from the terrorist views of Otegi and his friends. However, they are not moderate, they have said pretty radical things (remember their comments about the real basques Rh, for example) and its founder, Sabino Arana, was a racist.
 
Cleopatra said:
What is the attitude of people in the Basque area, of the simple Basques I mean towards ETA?

Do they support them? Do they approve of the military action or they object to it? Do the rest of the Spaniards hate the ordinary Basques today?
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Simple basques hate ETA just as much as the other Spaniards, I think. The problem is that there's no real freedom of speech there, there is for example the revolutionary taxes the businessmen have to pay if they don't want, well, trouble. ETA has attacked (killed) intelectuals for opposing them, etc. A lot of basques are nationalists (as Peskanov said, the PNV is the most voted party there), but that doesn't mean they agree with ETA, and again I'm sorry if I gave that impression. Most people in the rest of Spain sympathize with the basques (although we don't agree with their nationalist ideas, but that's what democracy is all about) Of course in moments like this some people break and just look for someone to blame and things like the ones Peskanov wrote about happen.

When answering Peskanov post I was just trying to say this, that most spaniards don't hate the basques, but my unfortunate remarks about the PNV gave just the opposite impression, I'm afraid.
 
Fendetestas,
if I gave that impression in my last post I'm sorry and I take back what I said.
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Thanks for moderating you message, really.

However, they are not moderate, they have said pretty radical things (remember their comments about the real basques Rh, for example) and its founder, Sabino Arana, was a racist.
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There are no doubts (even inside the PNV) about the racist origins of the basque nationalism, but I still think it's a missrepresentation to paint them as a racist party. There is xenophobia in the basque country, but in my experience (I reckon quite limited) is no more extended than others parts of Spain. For example, my city, Valencia, shows bigger problems in this concern.
About the famous Rh speech, I don't remenber very well it. I found thins link:

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2004/01/17/espana/1074325052.html

which contains part of it. However ,I still don't see what's so racist about it. It seems like the usual ultra-nationalist mumbo-jumbo to me.
 
Peskanov said:
Fendetestas,
There are no doubts (even inside the PNV) about the racist origins of the basque nationalism, but I still think it's a missrepresentation to paint them as a racist party. There is xenophobia in the basque country, but in my experience (I reckon quite limited) is no more extended than others parts of Spain. For example, my city, Valencia, shows bigger problems in this concern.
About the famous Rh speech (...) I still don't see what's so racist about it. It seems like the usual ultra-nationalist mumbo-jumbo to me.
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I agree completely with all of that. The Rh speech was not necessarily racist, just silly ultranationalism. I don't think PNV views are that of a racist party now, but they were in their beginnings, and I think if nationalists really wanted to reject them, they should have, I don't know, changed the party's name for example. But it's true "racist" is not the word I would use to paint them, "silly" would match them more closely.

I get the impression that you may think I'm a PP supporter, which I'm most certainly not and I didn't criticize the PNV from that point of view, it's just that I didn't like to see the word "moderate" associated with them, as I wouldn't like to associate the PP with the label "center party" (as opposed to right wing party, which is what they are)

I wrote my post most carelessly, and quite emotionally touched. After all, a cousin of mine died in one of the trains and my girlfriend got so sick in the demonstration that we spent several hours in the hospital, after having to carry her to an ambulance through the incredible mass of people (she's fine now, it was just the cold and the rain) and I was (am) very disappointed with how ALL political forces and even some citizens have started attacking each other and using this as a political weapon. I was tired, take into considerration only my last posts and forget the previous, less fortunate one.
 
Peskanov
I enjoyed reading your thoughtful posts.
Condolences to the people of Spain & Madrid.

Seems like such a small world sometimes. There is a group of children at my daughter’s school traveling through Europe (we are not in constant contact with them). There was a short time we thought they might have been in the area of the blasts. Turns out they had not yet arrived in Madrid, but did needed to change hotels because it was located near one of the sites.

News media in the US are beginning to conclude that the initial blame on ETA was a desire to delay the truth until after elections today. There are obvious political implications with Spain, England, and the US political supporters of the war in Iraq.
 
Mr Manifesto said:
Any word on how the election is going, BTW? Nothing on BBC or (Australian) ABC.
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Voting time will not end for another half hour, so we're not seeing any results yet. The only interesting thing I can think of right now is that participation at 18:00 (Spanish time) was more than 7 points higher than las time's at the same hour (roughly 63%)

Edited to add: Voting time ends at 20:00. But, as the Canary Islands are in a different time zone (the same as the UK), we will have to wait another hour (until it's 20:00 there) to have any results. That means we'll begin to know some data at 21:00 CET (+6 hours New York Time, I think)
 
Fendetestas, I am sorry for your loss. My condolences.

I also have emotional reasons for my initial arguments in this thread, as a big part of my family is basque and they received some crap unfairly. I still think Acebes was irresponsible with his actions.

Let's all hope common sense return to this country soon...
 
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