Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Spainish Election Results
I am perplexed by the Spanish election results from Sunday. The tremendous show of solidarity in mourning and demonstration on Friday led me to believe that the outcome would be in support of the current party. Strangely enough, political decisions are not always based on the same factors as those that drive the actions of the people.
Spain is an important ally to the U.S. in Iraq, and we will miss the presence of their troops. The decision to remove the troops from Iraq, although promised by the candidate before being elected, looks remarkably like a concession to the attackers of March 11th. I would not doubt that those associated with the attackers are celebrating Spain’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq as a victory. I have this image of these men nodding and smiling deviously in satisfaction, and frankly it turns my stomach.
Hugh Hewitt wrote the following on Monday about these election results:
“Spain voted yesterday and the government that allied itself with America in the war on terror fell. It is being reported as a major defeat in the war on terror, but it is no more a defeat than when the British electorate tossed out Winston Churchill just after the war in Europe had been successfully concluded and the war in the Pacific was on the verge of victory. Free peoples are free to do whatever they want when regularly scheduled elections roll around. There will be no stunning reversals of political fortune in the Arab world in the foreseeable future, except perhaps in Iraq, where Spain has helped plant freedom. Whatever Spain does in the next year will not erase the fact that it stood with the nations with enough courage to act in March, 2003. It is a traumatized country, but a valued ally in the past, the present and the future.”
Spain has helped plant the freedom, and no election results can change that fact.
Spain is an important ally to the U.S. in Iraq, and we will miss the presence of their troops. The decision to remove the troops from Iraq, although promised by the candidate before being elected, looks remarkably like a concession to the attackers of March 11th. I would not doubt that those associated with the attackers are celebrating Spain’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq as a victory. I have this image of these men nodding and smiling deviously in satisfaction, and frankly it turns my stomach.
Hugh Hewitt wrote the following on Monday about these election results:
“Spain voted yesterday and the government that allied itself with America in the war on terror fell. It is being reported as a major defeat in the war on terror, but it is no more a defeat than when the British electorate tossed out Winston Churchill just after the war in Europe had been successfully concluded and the war in the Pacific was on the verge of victory. Free peoples are free to do whatever they want when regularly scheduled elections roll around. There will be no stunning reversals of political fortune in the Arab world in the foreseeable future, except perhaps in Iraq, where Spain has helped plant freedom. Whatever Spain does in the next year will not erase the fact that it stood with the nations with enough courage to act in March, 2003. It is a traumatized country, but a valued ally in the past, the present and the future.”
Spain has helped plant the freedom, and no election results can change that fact.
