After the shock election result in Spain.....

[nedflanders]

in which the political structure of a nation has been changed. Do you think that the spanish people have given terrorists the green light to bomb in order to do so?

[sft42]

So your saying that the democratic order should be suspended just to send a message to whatever terrorist group did carry out the bombings and the favourites should have been elected? Who's to say that the opposition party in spain wouldn't have won without what happened?

As for a "green light to bomb" they didn't need it before they planted them on the trains so what real difference do you think it makes now? That the spanish troops will be withdrawn from Iraq is of course one feature that perhaps had more bearing on the outcome...Perhaps they had had enough of seeing their own troops lives being put at risk daily and lost for nothing or perhaps the spanish people had had enough of backing a military dictatorship that invades other countries under a flag of looking for non exsistant weapons to merely secure a hold on that countries natural resourses for it's own use?

[incitatus]

another interpretation is: the spanish government went to war against the will of its people. due to good performance elsewhere they accepted this, but when an attack, widely seen as a result of that war, was made the electorate punished the politicians responsible. This is what has Blair in a flap at the moment, because he had only minority popular support for Bush's war too, and is now worried we may punish him likewise. I do think it is unfortunate that the impression that bombs change polls has been given, but as the US and UK Have always historically used gunboat diplomacy as a means of changing election results (chile, pre-castro cuba, panama etc.) I think the example was probably already there.

[happysax]

On the contrary! The election result in Spain is successful, and now the country is no longer a target for terrorists as it was under the so-called 'Popular' government, who supported the Iraq war and made Spain a target, despite the wishes of the Spanish people. The Spanish people, in voting Socialist, have very much given the RED light to terrorism!

[darth vader]

agree with sft and inci - regardless of any bombing campaign that may/may not i don't think Labour wil get in again for the same reasons. (Certainly not if Blair is still in charge)

[darth vader]

...bombing campaign that may/may not happen...

[nedflanders]

What I am insinuating is that (contrary to some peoples on answerbank's beliefs) all the indications and polls were pointing to a victory for the popular party (even though 90% of the public were against war in Iraq). Now that the decision has swung against them 'Mr A. Terrorist from Saudi Arabia' might think that they can do this again in another country that's supports the war on terror. (for example Britain next election time).

[dave_in_cw]

Completely agree with you Ned. Since I use the tube every day, I so wish I did not agree with you. But I don't think they will necessarily wait until an election campaign. The Spanish bombs exactly two and a half years after 9/11 (911 days also apparently - I haven't counted) were hugely symbolic. It was their way of making it more difficult for the government to lie and blame it on ETA, because if ETA was to blame, then the voters would have had less reason to be angry at the government. Of course the dangers attendant to the invasion of Iraq were obvious to many before it was done: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/stor
y/0,11538,903804,00.html But maybe the world is safer after the invasion. I guess time will tell.

[Quizmonster]

I'm always amused when people blithely claim that the majority in Britain was against the Iraq war. Even yesterday evening on the Paxman war-anniversary programme, something like 46% of Brits asked said they thought the war was the right thing to do, 42% said it wasn't and the rest didn't know or care. So, more people are pro than anti even now and, at the time, the figures were vastly more in favour.

After the anti-war march in London, the organisers said 1� million people attended whilst the police - who actually have long experience of making such calculations - said there were around � of a million there. Whichever it was, in a country of some 60 million, it was a drop in the ocean. (Who knows?...If a pro-war march had been held, maybe 3 million would have pitched up!) So, what on earth do the antis base their silly claims on?

The plain facts are that (a) the Spanish have effectively qualified for "surrender-monkey" status - quote from 'The Simpsons' - just like the French beforehand and (b) the terrorists will almost certainly try to build on that if they see it as an advantage to do so.

In any case, they don't even need 'green lights' to bomb, as their atrocities in Istanbul and Bali (Indonesia) make abundantly clear. Both are Islamic countries, the latter being the most populous such country in the world, and many of the murdered were Muslims! However, if they see a green light, they will undoubtedly 'drive on'.

The Spanish decision is shameful. What amazes one is that the population seem to have elected the people responsible for the decision to withdraw from Iraq because the then Government had not fingered the suspects within the 48 hours between the atrocity's happening and the election's starting! It might prove to be a case of "elect in haste, repent at leisure."

[Janetex]

I don't think that there's a real right or wrong with the election, as with the war.

[incitatus]

qm- polls just before the war were 52-48 AGAINST military action. this only changed after it started due to the "loyalty effect"-cant let our boys down. As for the march being small- can you remember a single political march with a trunout that large? To motivate that many people to actually get off their backsides is something no political party in britain has been able to do since lord kitchener stopped making posters.

[Quizmonster]

Dear I, 52/48 one way - weren't there any 'don't-knows' back then? - and 46/42 the other seems pretty eeksy-peeksy to me. In other words, there were and are simply no grounds for claiming, as antis constantly do, that "the vast majority" of the British were/are against the war. In the same way, it would be absurd for me to claim that "the vast majority" of the British are in favour of it.

The country's split around 50/50 and that's all there is to it...any variations will almost certainly depend on the timing and wording of the pollsters' question on the matter.

Re the size of the anti-war march, we had much the same sort of exaggerated claims made by the pro-hunting march-organisers earlier. (I don't agree with them either!) I simply don't find people whistling and chanting brain-dead mantras - on whatever topic - on the streets very convincing politically.

[bobbobley]

Hello nedflanders, where you been for the past wee while?? we need more questions like this to provoke healthy debate.

yeah, I think the bombings made all the difference to the election result, which was shown by the myriad interviews with voters on all the news channels who said that they had all changed their vote following the terrible events in Madrid as "this event showed that Spain should not have been involved in the invasion of Iraq".

Its horrible to think that such action would be necessary in Britain for us all to oust Blair for his inexcusable intervention in Iraq at the behest of Bush, and obviously I hope very strongly that such action does not occur, but sadly due to voter apathy in this nation of ours its difficult to imagine anything else spurring people on enough at the polls. That's a sad indication of the nation of apathetic people we've become.

[scooby-doo]

i reackon that the alkadi has change the vote of who is in charge and so therefore will be threaten with other attacks