Centrisity

Spain and the war on Terror

I have been conspicuously quiet over the last few days. I've been weighing the events in Europe with how they effect the future of our goals in Iraq.

What happened in Spain, to Spain, was awful and ruthless. The enormous amount of defiance shown afterwards was as much part of the story as the bombing itself. Millions and millions of Spaniards defiantly raising their collective middle fingers to the terrorists in a show of national unity.

And then they went to the polls. The current Conservative Party had been leading in the polls going in, even though 90% of the people weren't all that thrilled about involvement with the US and the war on terror. At the end of the day, the people switched, and elected the "Socialist" party.

Is this a victory for terrorists, I suppose one could score it that way. Are the terrorists foolish enough to believe that the same tactic would work here, on our soil, probably. But then Mitch posts this, specifically:

And Kerry is the fool's candidate. A vote for John Kerry is a vote for letting the terrorists control the place, time, and agenda of the war on terror.
Like last weekend's vote in Spain - it's a vote for surrender.

How preposterous. Why does the Right insist on turning every thing into a name calling party, bashing the other side? Why do they continue to go negative and avoid the issues? Why do they simply refuse to recognize that a vote for Kerry is clearly not a White Flag? Sorry, it is really annoying for them to think that their way is the only way.

The Bush policies have created a void in our foreign policy relations that has built a new front for the terrorists to fight. The fragile nature of the 'coalition of the willing' will be taken advantage of, and other countries are in jeopardy.

Sorry Mitch, the Cowboy has made grave errors in this battle, and through deception had built a week coalition of support. The coalition is crumbling because it was never that strong. The people around the world can not take America for their word anymore. The current administration blew it, and there is nothing they can do at this point to change that.

The only way America will be successful in this battle is to regain the credibility we once had, that has since been destroyed over the last few years.

The American people will vote for a change. They will look for someone to return international credibility to the White House and our foreign policy.

If the GOP wants to be in the game, they better start to scramble now looking for a nominee. A vote for GW will not be a vote for credibility, and all that will be left in his column is the base, which won't be enough.

One Termer!

Flash

[UPDATE] I was directed to this piece that shares their own take on the events in Spain, and the following electoral results. Of many qualifying statements in the article, was this observation:

The Aznar government dragged Spain into the war against Iraq and the subsequent occupation even though 91% of Spaniards opposed it. It is only logical that the voters would take the first opportunity to rebuke the Popular Party for ignoring popular opinion. Although it keeps being said that the conservatives were leading in the polls before the Madrid bombings, polls are notoriously unreliable. Polls once suggested Dewey would beat Truman, too. I think the conservatives were doomed all along, and the polling just wasn't showing how unhappy people were.