However
after the recent victory of Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero,
I can only assume that the “new” Spain has aged quickly
in Rumsfeld’s eyes. Spain’s election results immediately
caused a collective howl of appeasement from many of our conservative
friends. The theory goes that if terrorists believe they can alter
an election through murder, the future of the war against them
is in trouble. Perhaps those who protest Spain’s result
believe the best way people who disagree with their “new”
European leaders can fight terror is to stay home on Election
Day.
I have a feeling the true reason politically savvy Republicans
were quick to brand the Spanish people as appeasers stems not
from an objection to the change in administrations, but rather
what they fear that decision portends for our own president’s
re-election chances.
Roughly 90 percent of the Spanish people opposed invading Iraq.
The victorious Socialists also opposed the war from the outset,
and further pledged to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq if elected.
So the election results should come as no surprise, right? Wrong.
In the weeks leading up to the election, polls pointed toward
the ruling People’s Party retaining power. So then, it must
have been the horrific bombing in Madrid that caused this sea
change in the election. And that willingness to retreat from Iraq
in the wake of a terrorist attack should be reason for celebration
in whatever cave Bin-Laden currently hides. Wrong again.
The course-changing event was not the murder of innocent Spaniards
in Madrid. Rather, it was the attempt by Aznar’s administration
to steer the investigation away from al-Qaida toward the Basque
terrorist group ETA. Aznar feared news that al-Qaida was responsible
for the bombings would harm him politically, whereas his strong
anti-ETA record would cause people to embrace him as a safe harbor
in the wake of an ETA attack
A daily newspaper, El Pais, reported Spanish embassies were ordered
by Foreign Minister Ana Palacio to suggest that ETA was responsible.
Prime Minister Aznar himself contacted Spanish newspapers and
urged them not to investigate al-Qaida connections to the bombing.
It was the revelation of this attempted cover-up that outraged
the Spanish people and led to Aznar’s defeat. “A critical
point was reached in a spectacular way. We stressed for years:
The People’s Party are lying and distorting the truth. It
took an important time, when people needed the truth, to discover
the level of manipulation, and that day was March 11th,”
says Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar, a member of the Socialist Party’s
National Executive.
That intolerance of being misled is what worries some conservatives
in this country. While a majority of Americans believes that invading
Iraq was the right decision, a majority also believes that President
Bush misled the country on his true reasons for that war. If one
democratic people can reject their leaders for being dishonest,
America’s conservatives must worry, what is to stop our
citizens from doing the same? They hope that branding the Spanish
voter’s decision as appeasement will cover the true reasons
for the outcome, and by doing so, will deflect attention from
our own president’s recent intimate history with deception.
For
past columns by Christopher Burke, visit his archive page at http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/burke/archive/
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