From the horse's mouth: The Bush regime has called Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry a liar because Kerry recently said that foreign leaders have told him that they want him to win the White House in November, but Kerry refused to name names. At least one newly elected foreign leader has outed himself as a Kerry supporter. The Associated Press reported yesterday that Spanish Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (pictured above during his victory on Sunday) was recently quoted in the International Herald Tribune as saying, "We're aligning ourselves with Kerry. Our allegiance will be for peace, against war, no more deaths for oil, and for a dialogue between the government of Spain and the new Kerry administration." (AFP photo)
Spain: The first domino? Let's hope
Those Americans who believe that other nations exist solely to do the will of the United States -- and their numbers are considerable -- are stupidly calling Spanish voters' ouster of the conservative Popular Party for the progressive Socialist Workers' Party on Sunday an appeasement of, or even a vote for, the terrorist organization al-Qaeda.
There are many reasons the Spanish voted out the Popular Party. The party's support for the Bush regime's Gulf War II against the majority of the Spanish people's wishes couldn't have helped the Popular Party. Nor could have the party's attempts to mislead the Spanish people into believing that last week's terrorist bombings of commuter trains in Madrid, which killed more than 200 people, were committed by the Basque separatist group ETA instead of by al-Qaeda, because the latter would be politically damaging to the Popular Party (and it was, when it was revealed that al-Qaeda indeed is believed to have been behind the terrorist attacks).
The Spanish vote is more of a rejection of the Bush regime's bellicose, insane foreign policy that puts the entire world at risk than it is a caving in to al-Qaeda.
Terrorists should be brought to justice, but that is primarily an intelligence and a law enforcement effort, not a military effort. Spain's prime minister-elect, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, hit the nail on the head when he said that "fighting terrorism with bombs...with Tomahawk missiles, isn't the way to defeat terrorism.... Terrorism is combatted by the state of law."
Zapatero appropriately has deemed the U.S. occupation of Iraq a "disaster" and a "fiasco" and has said that he is rooting for John Kerry to win the White House in November. (The Associated Press reported yesterday that "The International Herald Tribune recently quoted Zapatero as saying, 'We're aligning ourselves with Kerry. Our allegiance will be for peace, against war, no more deaths for oil, and for a dialogue between the government of Spain and the new Kerry administration.'")
Zapatero has pledged to make good on his campaign promise that Spain will withdraw its 1,300 peacekeeping troops from Iraq unless the United Nations takes control of the operation in Iraq by the end of June.
Spain seems to be the first toppling domino in the Bush regime's precarious "coalition of the willing." The AP reports today that "President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a key U.S. ally, said [today] that Poland was 'misled' about whether Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of mass destruction and was considering withdrawing troops from Iraq several months early."
Zapatero's election victory and willingness to stand up to the Bush regime seems to have emboldened at least one other world leader to say what's on his mind and to reconsider whether his nation also should have to suffer because of the Bush regime's mistakes and lies involving Iraq.
Zapatero also has pledged to restore Spain's relations with France and Germany, whose governments, unlike Spain's outgoing conservative government, opposed Gulf War II. "Spain will get back in touch with Europe -- Spain will be more pro-European than ever," the AP quoted Zapatero as saying.
A unified "Old Europe," as the Bush regime calls it, may be the only thing that can keep the Bush War Machine in check if Americans don't get their shit together and boot Bush's sorry ass in November.
The AP noted that Spain's Popular Party "on Sunday became the first government that backed Washington in Iraq to be voted from office."
Hopefully, that is the beginning of a trend. Zapatero's victory in Spain leaves British Prime Minister Tony Blair as Bush's sole surviving lapdog in "Old Europe," with the exception of Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi. Elections in Britain in June will be, at least in part, a referundum on Blair's support for Gulf War II against British popular opinion, and the U.S. presidential election in November also will be, at least in part, a referendum on Gulf War II.
The change of the guard in Spain is encouraging. Hopefully the Spanish have toppled the first domino and the last domino will topple in November.
The Iraqi people, who suffered first under Saddam Hussein's regime and now suffer under George W. Bush's regime, deserve at least that much.
5:35:22 PM 
|
