So what's DU's take on the Madrid bombings?

Here's what I think:
That Aznar, being a close buddy of chimp, has learnt a few lessons from the chimp's handlers. How to manipulate the vote in a democratic system by using fear.
Just like 911, even before investigators have had time to get to the scene, govt officials were blaming ETA, conveniently trotting out a series of "dots" that connected the ETA to the crime- for instance some ETA operative caught a few weeks ago in France with explosives. This despite a well-known fact that ETA always warns before conducting a bombing run.
The timing of the explosions, just before the spanish general elections, is also suspect. Does anyone know who will gain electorally after the bomb blasts? I wouldn't be surprised if it's Aznar and party.
And ETA can't be so dumb not to realize such an attack will actually further marginalize and alienate the group and its cause.
This may be another example of a new situation developing globally after 911- where ruling elites engineer attacks on their own people, blame a shadowy network, use fear to intimidate voters, and get re-elected with massive mandates.
We're really moving speedily towards an Orwellian world.
Or am I a kook who's had too many joints?

nfm

It is all a little unsettling, isn't it? I wonder if something like what happened today will happen here just before our election? It goes right down with Paul Wellstone getting killed before the 2002 election. This is not being paranoid or wearing tin foil, you must wonder if this all took place to help Aznar win the election in Spain?


John

I don't feel happy either...

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Thanks for the warm welcome, newyawker99. :-) (It's too much information too soon, I know, but my boyfriend and I broke up in late January and, since then, I've found that the effect of every friendly gesture is magnified.)

Tchetchenia (or how do you spell that?)

I don't think it was done by Aznar or Bush... I believe it was certainly NOT ETA, and probably Al Qaeda.

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nt

The Basques have a history of bombing anything and everything Spanish

That is just plain wrong. What do you want to say? Such broad-brushed statements are worthless.

(Not the basques but very few who worked for ETA, and not anything and everything Spanish but certain representatives of the Spanish administration)

Terrorist atrocity in Madrid kills at least 192 people
Statement of the WSWS Editorial Board
12 March 2004
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/madr-m12.shtml
Excerpt:
By yesterday evening, Spanish government officials appeared to be backing off from their original insistence that the ETA was unquestionably the author of the atrocities. The Spanish interior minister reported that a van containing detonators and an audiotape of Koranic verses had been found near the scene of one of the bombings.

The Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi in London announced that it had received a letter that purportedly came from the “Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades,” part of the Al Qaeda network, claiming responsibility for the bombings.

A US official cautioned it was “still too early to say” whether the blasts were carried out by ETA or other terror groups, including Al Qaeda.

It cannot be ruled out that Spanish state forces or rightists linked to the government were involved in the bombings. It would not be the first time that such provocations have been staged in order to cement the grip of an unpopular regime.

One notable example is the CIA-authored Operation “Gladio,” which involved a series of bomb outrages in Italy in the 1970s. These terrorist crimes were carried out to counter the growing influence of the Italian Communist Party and shift politics to the right, as part of a “strategy of tension.” The Italicus train near Bologna was targeted in 1974, and in 1980 a bomb was exploded in the Bologna station’s waiting room, killing 85 people.

Whoever carried out the bombings, however, the effect is the same. Such is the reactionary role played by terrorism that it is difficult to know where bankrupt politics ends and state provocation begins.

Welcome to "1984".

Yes, this shadowy network is all you suggested. And it is worldwide.

this stunt has CIA written all over it

Geez, could the guy look any more goofy!?! Freakin Rain-Man!

rule... who gains from this. That's where you'll find the cockroaches.

Spark it up...

That's my analysis. Bombings suck, no matter who did it.

When I first saw the news of the bombing, I thought it was al-Qaida.

It seems a little too convenient that the elections are 3 days away.

Here's an excellent article I found on Antiwar.com:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0312/dailyUpdate.html?s=mits

Other articles:
http://www.techcentralstation.com/031204J.html
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/12/1078594562675.html

Very interesting that this attack occurred 911 days after Sep 11, 2001. I don't believe in coincidences.

you are completely right. This has Al-Qaeda or moslim extremism written all over it.

I don't buy the thinking that Aznar engineered this. The only thing they are trying to engineer is the link with ETA.

Because if the people of Spain, who were massively opposed to the war, figure out that their fearless leader has made them into a target, they will lay the blame where it belongs, and Aznar's party would lose in the election.

On a side note : half a year ago, I had a heated discussion with a work colleague from Barcelona, who's an Aznar supporter. I convinced him of the PNAC agenda and Bush*s motives, but he remained unshakeable in his belief "that the fight against "muselmans" as he put it would be inevitable".

I think he was just proven right in the most appaling way.

All the other parties are saying he is not being truthful.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1225261

You are right on everything you said.

than the speed of light, but a few days later prince Felipe (I believe) DID NOT, and left the question open. That was pretty important imho.

I didn't know about the fact that it occured 911 days after 9/11. I knew that it was exactly three and one half years since 9/11.

These attacks really disturbs me. I myself have relatives in the UK, and considering Blair has also took part in this disasterous, unjustified mess, his nation too might be a target (granted it might have been even if they hadn't supported the Iraq war simply because they were also active in Afgh., actions which were justified, but were botched by this admin. IMO).

People in the US don't understand how much trains in general are used in Europe, both in the UK and continental. They are used by everyone -- normal commuters, tourists, anyone.

One thing is for sure -- there is absolutely NO JUSTIFICATION for these horrible murders, none whatsoever. It's absolute insanity and barbarism at its worst (by this I mean both the Iraq war and other terrorist acts).