The Poet's Eye
commentary by Lightning Rod
The Poets' Eye is skeptical without being cynical, innocent without being naive and critical without being judgemental.
The Rain In Spain
03-17-04
The Poet’s Eye has a tear in it this week for the innocents who died and were maimed in Spain. Anytime civilians are casualties of war or a natural disaster it is cause for grief. When an earthquake crushes thousands or a hurricane wreaks havoc, we only have God to curse. In the case of terrorism there are more specific culprits. We can lay blame and exact revenge.
As Lenin said, “the purpose of terrorism is terror.” In the case of the Madrid bombings the purpose was deftly achieved. And it also had large results. The Spanish parliamentary elections were obviously affected by the event. The Popular Party which was favored in the election before the bombings by 3-4% in the polls, lost to the Socialists mainly on the strength of the notion that Aznar’s government had been the lap-dog of the Bush administration in its invasion of Iraq which had made Spain a target for terrorism.
The Spanish have enough experience with terrorism to know that it does not happen without reason. The concept of revenge is not foreign to the Latin mind. Men don’t risk loss of life, limb and freedom without a cause that they deem critical. You just don’t blow up buildings and trains for fun or because you are evil. You do it to get the attention of the world. Sadly, it is a very effective tactic.
Whether the bombings in Madrid were the work of Basque Separatists or Al Queda or ETA acting with the consultation of Muslim extremists doesn’t really matter to the families of the dead. Their grief is personal. The grief of Spain is more significant on the world stage.
The purported coalition of which Bush has been boasting has lost one of its TWO major European allies. The Spanish people were never in favor of the American invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration enjoyed the sympathy of the Aznar regime and used that semblance of approval to claim that the world community was somehow aligned in a coalition. This is fiction of the highest order. The only other members of the ‘coalition’ are countries to which America can put the economic screws. The ‘coalition’ consists of America, Britain and a few other token countries like Eritrea and Palau and Latvia supplying token support.The Spanish people have wisely seen that being aligned with the Bush ‘coalition’ is no protection against terror, in fact they perceive that this association has caused or invited terror into their country.
The Poet’s Eye sees that Imperial Bushco is not enjoying the benefits of terrorism the way it has for the past two years, using the treat of terror as a pretext to invade two foreign countries for the purpose of commercial gain while curtailing the freedoms and privacy of every citizen at home. The veneer is wearing thin. Especially in Spain.
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