Terror

[rowyn]

Getting just what they wanted.

"CNN also has obtained an al Qaeda document that spells out the terrorist group's plan to separate Spain from the U.S.-led coalition on Iraq.
...
"The strategy spelled out in the document calls for using terrorist attacks to oust Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Partido Popular from power and replace it with the Socialists.
...
"'We think the Spanish government will not stand more than two blows, or three at the most, before it will be forced to withdraw because of the public pressure on it,' the al Qaeda document says.
...
"the Socialists unseat[ed] the Popular Party three days after near-simultaneous bombings of four trains killed 200 and shocked the nation.
...
"Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Monday he wants the 1,300 Spanish troops in Iraq to return home by June 30 if the United Nations 'doesn't take control of Iraq.'

"'I think Spain's participation in the war has been a total error,' he said."

I feel sick.

Comments

What is a misdeed?

[telnar.livejournal.com]

Your phrasing lumps "our support for Israel" with "our past misdeeds." In fact our support for Israel is far better known and more frequently criticized than our other actions (which include things like supporting the Shah of Iran, but also include defending Egypt's territorial integrity against Britain and France in 1956).

The problem is that I would count support for the only democratic non-European country in the region as one of the things we do right -- not a misdeed (I'm not counting NATO member and EU applicant, Turkey). Most Arab states have no interest in peace with Israel except to the extent that it can't be defeated militarily (admittedly, a possibility to which they are increasingly becoming resigned), and their public opinion strongly favors eliminating the state in its entirety.

There are legitimate differences of opinion on the appropriate borders for Israel (although the only reason that Israel conquered additional territory in 1967 was because it was it was invaded by every major neighboring state, and the reason that much of that territory was not quickly returned was that at the time, Israel's neighbors were committed to its destruction and invaded again in 1973). That said, the Israeli Supreme Court remains the only (domestically controlled) court in the region where Muslims can expect justice. I happen to think that the US has a moral responsibility to assist small free states threatened by larger undemocratic neighbors, and that doing so brings practical benefits by making attacks on those states less likely in the future. Based on that, I support defending Israel just as I support defending Taiwan.

Incidentally, I have rarely seen more hypocrisy than in the way UN and European organizations criticize Israel. That country is held to an almost impossibly high standard (e.g. being criticized when it's forces inflict civilian casualties by using small arms firing at combatants who are shooting at them from buildings containing civilians even when the Israeli forces specifically avoided using artillery because of those civilians), while there is at most token comment for events which occur in Arab states like Saddam Hussein’s attempt to eliminate the Marsh Arab culture by diverting rivers after the first Gulf War or Hafez Assad's decision to sack the town of Hama in 1982 and exterminate its 20,000 inhabitants as a response to perceived disloyalty.