Barca,

here are two German articles where I drew my information from. Der Spiegel is one of or the best of Germany's magazines

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/auslan...291101,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutsc...290953,00.html

both of those articles are about how the BKA (German version of the FBI) offered any aid possible to the Spanish authorities and was sent on a wichhunt for ETA terrorists by the Spanish governmnet.

I know, I knew that the German secret services were following the lead of ETA, but then again so were spanish police until the announcement on thw very same evening that they were open to all leads. My point was that chronologically, people in Spain did have access to information, and if anything, you can complain about a delay in giving out details.

Barça, the spanish government DID lie about the culprits. Although the Interior Minister managed to put out clues about a diferent terrorist group being responsible, the fact is that Ana Palazio issued a memo to every Embassy around the world, and especially the Spanish Embassy at the UN, demanding that every spanish representative defends with tooth and nails the ETA thesis.
And this tells me that Aznar was doing damage control.
Besides, is highly irresponsable of any politician to make accusations in such hurry, before any forensics have had the chance to examine the bomb site.
The PP lost the elections because of their own faults. The March 11 bombings only hammered the final nail on the coffin.
Also, the terrorist group responsible for it has issued a statement where they pledge a Cease-fire, untill they perceive the direction that this new govt. is taking. When Zapatero stated the spanish troops would abandon Iraq, this group has since promised to end all operations in Spain, and vowed to move on to other coalition nations. In this case, they came here. If people remember, it was the portuguese PM that hosted the war summit, and supported Bush´s endeavour. Just like Spain, some 85 to 90% or our people stood against it. And we have the Euro 2004 coming up, a huge target for any terror strike.
We received a letter from a supposed member of that same group, stating they would conduct similar strikes here, unless we turn away from Iraq.
But that is a diferent story.

Btw, one spanish man has been arrested in conection to the Madrid blasts. He used to work as a miner, and stole 100kg of C-2 from the mines, wich he sold to the terrorists. There is even his name and photo floating around in the media.

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

I disagree totally. I think that al Queda correctly predicted and anticipated our probable response, and I think that Bush responded exactly as they'd always hoped he would. Bush has played right into their hands at every possible turn. They could not have hoped for more. Everything Bush has done has helped them, and greatly strengthened their cause, and expanded their support base enormously all over the globe. That was their real goal: not simply to kill a few thousand silly Americans (that's just small potatos) their real goal was to mobilize all those that are sympathetic to their ideals and their cause, and to give them hope, and they accomplished that beautifully. They have been positively brilliant in this regard. It's pure genius. We are now seeing the birth of an entirely new (and truly massive) generation of terrorists, and the beginning of a new and far more extensive campaign of terrorism that the influx of all these new supporters will now permit.

Just as Japan "awoke the sleeping giant" when they attacked Pearl Harbor in WWII Bush has likewise awakened the sleeping giant of international terrorism, with all his actions since 9-11. And that was the ultimate goal that al Queda had really hoped to achieve all along.

They have proved beyond dispute that even a very small group of highly dedicated people can turn this entire country upside-down sooo very easily. And they've proved that we can be provoked into making sweeping changes in our entire society quite easily, and that if this one little group can do that to us then any other tiny group can, too.

The fact of the matter is that al Queda is a hell of a lot smarter than Bush and his cronies (and most of the American people as well) are, or ever will be.

The whole situation reminds me somewhat of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968. Even though it was an incredibly costly military disaster for the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese forces it was also an enormously important political "turning-point" victory for them, since their heavy sacrifice actually brought about the final collapse of American support for the war here at home, and led directly to the US pullout from Vietnam. So even though they lost far more people than they killed, and basically crippled themselves militarily in the process, they still won in the end, since it still brought about a full military and political victory in the end. As paradoxical as it may seem they truly did win by losing, for all intents and purposes. And al Queda's ultimate goals are much the same. To get the support they need al Queda needs the US itself to really stir up the entire Arab world, and totally enrage their people. Bush is very busy doing just that, as we speak.

It does not matter how many terrorists we hunt down and kill. The more of them we kill, the more of them we eventually breed, that's all. The only way al Queda could have lost would have been if we had done nothing; if we had not responded at all. That alone would have consituted an absolute failure for them. Only then would their sacrifices have been in vain.

Don't be so naive: all along the way we have done exactly what these terrorist originally hoped and prayed we would do. We have responded just as they'd hoped we would when they first made their plans. And we continue to be the puppet at the end of the string; not the puppetmaster we mistakenly believe ourselves to be these days. They are the ones calling all the shots, not us, and they will continue to do so for as long as we continue to respond in kind. As long as we insist upon doing even more of what it was that made them hate us so badly to begin with.

It sure doesn't take a rocket scientist to see all this.

Then why would bin Laden call the US a paper tiger and claim that as soon as some American blood was spilled we would leave Saudi Arabia? Was this a clever reverse-psychology ploy?

@ Ranger

:::APPLAUSE::: that was a thesis worth reading about and has very plausible explanations in it...

Swamp Thing:
I disagree. How can the attack have been the final nail when in fact the day before the attacks the PP had a more than healthy lead? The PP didnt really lose that many votes, but if you reckon that the attack had nothing to do, you are not paying attention to the millions of voters that didnt bother on the past election. I admit that they had put themselves (PP) in ann awkard situation, but the attack influenced vote enormously.
The group which has claimed a ceasefire is not yet recognised as being behind the attack, since Al Qaeda has also taken credit for the attack (the ones you mention are ABu HAfs El Asri or something like that) ANyways, no one, absolutely no one cares what that letter says. No government is going to start supporting fundamentalism, so I cant see their 'ceasefire' as having any real value.

I would think(hope) that Zapatero's pledge of pulling out the troops - unless the UN and/or NATO would be involved - made the difference. Do any polls say anything about that?

Muspell:
Not really. The spanish military has no recognition by the people at large. With that I mean that we do not care as much as Americans or the British do about their troops. In spain, it is generally accepted that our troops only play humanitarian missions, and thus we applaud their efforts, we do not condemn their actions.
His decision to pull the troops out was not a determining factor, but rather the perception that going to Iraq was a direct cause of our alliance with the US

Barça, i don´t mean to say that the bombings had no effect on the vote, only that most spaniards were already leaning towards the opposition and considering to change sides, due to many diferent situations:
The Prestige, where the government LIED and acted in a totally inadequate fashion, and only way after the damage was done.
The Iraq war, where some 90% of the people were against and protested strongly, but Aznar chose to ignore the wishes of the people.
And then ETA, wich Aznar pledged to finish off and totally wipe out, wich he didn´t acomplish at all.
The Madrid bombings were the feather that finally tipped the scale. It forced many spaniards to come out of "hiding" and vote, a thing that many neglected to do in the previous elections.
And i wouldn´t place too much weight on the pre-bombing polls either. Polls are often quite wrong, simple because not enough people are consulted.Polls use only about 1000 calls or street interviews to make their assessements, and as such they are falible. The biggest chunk of people who came out to vote and that changed their vote in regard to the past elections, was composed of young people, like college students. And this group never gets any real representation on the polls.
Older people have a harder time changing sides.
Regarding the group responsible, i think neither you or me have the capability to say they did it or not. If even the secret services fail miserably, how can we? But so far they are the most obvious and evidence backed group.
Besides, the group is a splinter group of Al-Qaeda, and thus its perfectly obvious why both would reclaim responsability. But in the end it doesn´t really matter, does it?
Another thing, don´t be so quick to discard the importance of those letters. It could be a prank joke, but it could also be jenuine. Discarding it in this point of the investigation would be irresponsable and even dangerous. :indeed:

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.