Reading Cecilia Duran’s letter on the Spanish elections, I wasn’t surprised to see the kind of revisionism that has welcomed Spain’s new socialist rulers into power. Several facts in the article were misleading, and the lessons of this election need to be known. To begin, Aznar’s government did not lie to the Spanish people. Intelligence documents that have been released in the last few days show that the information that Spanish authorities originally had pointed to ETA (a group that has killed around 850 innocents since its founding). In fact, by 7:30 the night of the bombing, the Spanish government announced that they were looking at the possibility that an Islamic group was responsible, but that they were not ruling any other suspects out. It is amazing that, given the confusion that naturally follows events of this sort, the Spanish authorities were able to both accurately focus their investigation and resist the temptation to ignore any possibility.
Ms. Duran also looks at this election as a referendum on Prime Minister Aznar’s support of the war in Iraq. This could be believable, if Aznar’s Popular party was expected to lose these elections. However, before these attacks they were expected to win and remain in power. The sudden change came after this atrocity, and can be summed up in this quote by a Spanish voter who changed his vote following the attacks “Maybe the socialists will get our troops out of Iraq, and Al Qaeda will forget about Spain, so we will be less frightened.” Of course, giving terrorists exactly what they want is not apt to deter further attacks.
The last point that needs to be made is that this is defeat for freedom loving people the world over, and a victory for the terrorists. Regardless of your stance on invading Iraq, the war is over, and there is now the difficult job of creating a free and stable democracy in the country. There are terrorists operating now in Iraq who don’t want this to happen, and are bombing troops and civilians every day to try to stop democracy from taking hold. I have always argued that we need more international troops in Iraq, not less, and sending a message to terrorists that attacks will weaken our resolve is a very dangerous message to send. Capitulating to their demands will only invite more bloodshed.
Thomas Friedman recently ended an article on this subject by quoting Churchill’s remark after Chamberlain’s signing of the Munich pact in an attempt to appease Hitler, and I will quote it again here as it bears remembering. “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” The Spanish people just sent a clear message to terrorists, and I hope the rest of the world does not follow suit.
Nicholas Kassotis CAS 2004 kassotis@bu.edu 617-320-3599
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