Author: Josh Philip Ross

The New York Times provides further insight into the Spanish Election [via Eschaton]:

The contest in Spain had always been close between the governing Popular Party, which backed Mr. Bush’s policies, and the Socialists, who opposed them. Other issues at stake before the bombings were unemployment, a housing shortage, women’s rights and social benefits.

In March 2003, at the height of opposition to the Iraq war, the Socialists were ahead in polls. With the economy roaring and the Socialist Party in disarray, the Popular Party pulled ahead. On March 7, the last date in which polls were published, an Opina poll showed that the gap had narrowed, giving the Popular Party 42 percent, compared with 38 percent for the Socialists ….

Voters said they were enraged not only by the government’s insistence that the Basque separatist group ETA was responsible, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, but they also resented its clumsy attempts to quell antigovernment sentiment.

For example, the main television channel TVE, which is state-owned, showed scant and selective scenes of antigovernment demonstrations on Saturday night, just as it ran very little coverage of the large demonstrations against the war in Iraq last year. It also suddenly changed its regular programming to air a documentary on the horrors of ETA.

That was the last straw for some Spaniards, who said it evoked the nightmare of censorship during the Franco dictatorship little more than a quarter of a century ago.

Ever since the Spanish voted out the ruling Popular Party, there has been talk that the people’s choice was somehow a victory for Al Qaeda, or at least a dangerous gesture of appeasement. This line of argument requires that we agree to two givens, both of them controversial:

1. The Bush administration and its allies are fighting terror effectively, so any other political choice is a vote against a successful war on terror.

2. The Spanish made their choice out of fear, hoping that by removing their pro-Bush leader they would appease the Islamists and prevent future attacks.

As far as the first point goes, among my strongest complaints against the Bush administration is that it has not done nearly enough to combat terror. Bin Laden is still at large, Al Qaeda is still clearly capable of impressive attacks against Western capitals, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia remain essentially as they were before 9/11, and security measures at home have been half-hearted and underfunded. The Iraq war may well end up improving the lives of Iraqis, but it was a misdirected salvo in the war on terror ? a costly and distracting endeavor that pulled resources and attention from the real threat, which was and is the shadowy underworld of Islamist terrorism. They get their weapons and logistical support from Pakistan, not Iraq, and their money from Saudi Arabia. Remaking the Middle East is dandy, but the failure to focus on Al Qaeda is legitimate grounds for criticism.

On the second point, I’m not at all convinced that the Spanish voted out of fear. In fact, Aznar’s government was craven and cowardly in the days after the Madrid bombings, at a time when bravery and leadership were called for. Instead of coming forward with everything they knew, the government covered up mounting evidence that the attack was mounted by Islamists, instead blaming ETA [via Talking Points Memo]. Why? Because Aznar’s participation in the Iraq War has been deeply unpopular, while his successes against ETA helped bring him to power.

As the Washington Post points out:

Suspicion that the government manipulated information — blaming ETA in order to divert any possible link between the bombings and Aznar’s unpopular support for the war in Iraq — helped fuel the upset victory of the Socialist Workers’ Party in Sunday’s elections. By then, Islamic extremists linked to al Qaeda had become the focus of the investigation ….

On Saturday night — hours before the polls opened — the government announced the arrests of three Moroccans and two Indians, and the discovery of a videotape from a purported al Qaeda official asserting responsibility for the attacks. Thousands of Spaniards responded by taking to the streets, banging pots and pans in protests and denouncing the government.

That voter anger swept the Socialists back to power for the first time in eight years.

So the Spanish voted against the party that had failed to protect the Spanish people from Islamist terrorism and then refused to face up to what had happened in Madrid. I’m not sure how a vote for the status quo ? a government that fought terror by sending a few troops to Iraq and by lying in the face of disaster ? would have been braver than a vote for change.

Topic: Personal

Back in December, I wrote an essay about how much I liked snow.

That was December.

Now it’s March, and after what was admittedly a mild and unusually pleasant February, it’s snowing again. Only this isn’t that softly falling gentle stuff that piles up into beautiful white blankets over everything. It’s mucky nasty sleety snow that pelts but doesn’t stick, and it’s accompanied by the kind of frantic wind that ensures that the little icy pinpricks get in everywhere, no matter how you struggle to hold them off with your sad little inside-out umbrella. Slush puddles up at every corner, lurking in wait for the shoes you thought you could wear now because it’s basically spring. (Earlier today we watched in horror as a man climbed out an office window across the street, stood unsecured on the snowy ledge, and cleaned the window.)

Spring in New York is the trickster season, the time of taunting from the skies — the time of year when I inevitably start fantasizing about a nice house in the redwoods somewhere north of San Francisco. One day it’s 64 degrees so you take the lining out of your coat, and then the next day it snows. You get a gorgeous Friday and a gorgeous Saturday, so you decide to go for a walk in the park on Sunday and it’s freezing rain. For three months you keep looking at the trees with their little red nubbins of what will one day be leaves, but they’re not leaves yet. No one has done any outdoor sprucing since last September, and the bare trees and underpopulated streets are strewn with garbage.

And everyone is stir-crazy, having been confined to small indoor spaces for months. It’s three days running now that I’ve seen people cursing each other on the subway for the inevitable slights of rush hour: blocked doorways, accidental bumpings. This morning in the Union Square station I saw two women shrieking at each other, faces inches apart. Summer heat waves are more likely to spark collective riots, but nothing beats late winter/early spring for sheer personal bitterness.

There is, however, a payoff. There will come a day — the day — when the weather will change. One day, maybe in May if we’re lucky, maybe in late June if we’re not, the drizzle will inexplicably give way and it will be 78 degrees and sunny. And that first day of real summer is like nothing you can ever experience with California weather. It’s like recovering from an illness and falling in love and discovering beauty all at once, and everyone else is doing it too. Suddenly the world is full of people again, with shapes — one year Jenny overheard one Wall Street type say to another, “See? They have legs again!” People smile at each other in the line at the smoothie bar, they pet each other’s dogs. New York becomes a pleasure again, a sensual street theater, the perfect place to wander for hours.

But that’s all months away. For now, there is muck in the sky, curses in the subway, and another week to go before it’s even spring.

It occurs to me to highlight some of the most interesting elements of the new Iraqi constitution. These include guarantees of health care and social security, the right to privacy, equal rights for women, limits on gun ownership, and a guarantee of not only the rights in this constitution but also “rights stipulated in international treaties and agreements,” which I believe includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And discussion of who can marry whom is notably absent.

Article 12: All Iraqis are equal in their rights without regard to gender, sect, opinion, belief, nationality, religion, or origin, and they are equal before the law. Discrimination against an Iraqi citizen on the basis of his gender, nationality, religion, or origin is prohibited.

Article 13.H: Each Iraqi has the right to privacy.

Article 14: The individual has the right to security, education, health care, and social security. The Iraqi State and its governmental units, including the federal government, the regions, governorates, municipalities, and local administrations, within the limits of their resources and with due regard to other vital needs, shall strive to provide prosperity and employment opportunities to the people.

Article 16.I: Civilians may not be tried before a military tribunal. Special or exceptional courts may not be established.

Article 17: It shall not be permitted to possess, bear, buy, or sell arms except on licensure issued in accordance with the law.

Article 23: The enumeration of the foregoing rights must not be interpreted to mean that they are the only rights enjoyed by the Iraqi people. They enjoy all the rights that befit a free people possessed of their human dignity, including the rights stipulated in international treaties and agreements, other instruments of international law that Iraq has signed and to which it has acceded, and others that are deemed binding upon it, and in the law of nations. Non-Iraqis within Iraq shall enjoy all human rights not inconsistent with their status as non-citizens.

Makes ya wanna move to Iraq.

A new poll finds that Iraqis believe they are better off now than they were before the U.S. invasion a year ago, even in surprising categories like electricity services. The positive sentiments are dramatically higher among Kurds than among the population in general, which is no surprise; but even the numbers for the Arab population are positive. (The poll doesn’t differentiate between Sunnis and Shi’ites.) The pollsters find that “the level of personal optimism is extraordinary: Seventy-one percent expect their lives to improve over the next year.”

Meanwhile in America, 60 percent say they are dissatisfied with “the way things are going in the United States at this time.” But then, unlike the Iraqis, we don’t have a constitution that guarantees human rights, healthcare and social security.

There’s been a lot of chatter lately about how close we’re getting to capturing Osama Bin Laden. The Marines are mounting a major offensive in eastern Afghanistan, caves are being raided, and various sources are making “noose is tightening” statements every couple of days.

I expect that if Bin Laden is captured, it will be a huge boost for Bush. It shouldn’t be.

By September 11, 2001, we already knew that Osama was behind the USS Cole bombing; since 9/11, it’s been clear that he is America’s number one enemy. We have also known (or at least suspected strongly) that since the fall of the Taliban, Bin Laden has been hiding out in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan or western Pakistan. All of which raises the question, why now? Why not a year ago, or two years ago?

The answer is obvious: Iraq. There was a murderer loose in our town, but instead of chasing him down, we went and arrested the owner of a nearby sporting-goods store because we thought he might have guns in it that he might sell to the murderer.

And in the meantime, what’s the murderer been up to? The tally so far is 643 dead in Bali, Istanbul, Karbala, Baghdad, and now Madrid. If we catch Bin Laden tomorrow, it will be too late for those victims.

If, as Bush is fond of saying, his first duty is to keep the American people safe, then why are we only now closing in on the real threat?