March 11th of 2004 started out as any other day, yet, by sunset a horrible crime had been carried out and a government deemed as democratic was scrambling to profit politically from the tragedy.
That day a series of bombs went off during the morning commute. The targets were both trains and train stations used primarily by the working class that lives outside Madrid.
The victims: men and women on their way to work, students on their way to their classrooms, parents taking their children to school.
As usual, the innocent as victims of a group of cowards that think that the only way to achieve goals is violence.
The public reacted immediately, and soon they were blaming the usual suspect for the attacks, Basque armed group ETA. The first politician to issue a statement against the attacks was Basque premier Juan José Ibarretxe, he directed harsh words against ETA and their violent means.
At the time there was confusion and the efforts were aimed at rescuing the wounded, the police moved to prevent more bombings. Everyone was doing what you are supposed to do during a tragedy, aid the fallen, protect other possible victims.
Everyone but a tight group of shady characters, led by the heir to the most backwards viewpoints in Spain, the then Prime Minister José María Aznar.
Up until that morning, his anointed successor Mariano Rajoy was on his way to electoral triumph, and if they had not taken the ill conceived decision of trying to profit from the tragedy, Rajoy could very well be Spain's Prime Minister today.
But for the first time in his flashy career, José María Aznar freaked out; he lost his cool, at the worst possible time, at least the worst possible time for him and his puppet, Mariano Rajoy.
At the beginning his Minister of the Interior Angel Acebes had pin the blame on ETA, at that moment there was nothing wrong with it, he was not out of line by doing so because in previous weeks the Spanish police forces had detained a number of ETA members trying to set explosives on train tracks.
Then came the bit of information that sent waves of fear through the hearts of these Francoist wannabes. The police had found a van with a Quran and tapes in Arabic, a classic Al Qaeda move. Aznar saw the picture; he saw those crowds that had demonstrated against his support to the war in Iraq, he was reminded that on that one issue, 90% of the Spanish public was against him.
And out of fear of defeat, out of a wounded ego that saw his political legacy and career crashing down, he came up with a strategy that seemed brilliant to him and his followers; he decided to blame Basque nationalism.
He was killing two birds with one stone, on one side, he would make sure people would not see the Islamist threat as a result of his boneheaded decision to go to war in Iraq, on the other, he would fuel the fire of hate rage against anything and everything that had to do with Basque self-determination, being this his pet obsession.
And so, he ordered his ambassador to the UN to move for a condemnation of the attacks, blaming ETA in specific, something never done by the UN before in history.
In person, he phoned different newspaper directors, and requested from them to stick to the then, official version, it had been ETA.
His underling, Ana Palacio, sent a memorandum to all ambassadors instructing them to ensure that all of them would veer the media in each one of the countries they were located to think that the authory of the attacks was on ETA.
Angel Acebes, gladly took on the job of insisting ad nauseum that yes, ETA was behind the attacks. He went to the extreme of lying to the German anti-terrorist unit, making them believe that the explosives and the detonators used on the attacks were those that ETA uses to carry its bombings, as a result, the Germans dropped their guard, it was after all a case of domestic violence. Try to imagine if Al Qaeda had plans to attack in Germany that same day, they would have achieved surprise thanks to Acebes misguiding his German colleagues. That is a crime; it is indeed a heinous crime.
Then Aznar aimed his guns at Basque nationalism, he had his PP drones printing banners that read “With the Victims, with the Constitution, against Terrorism”.
Why “with the Constitution”?
What does the Constitution has to do with a terrorist attack?
Shouldn’t it say “with Peace”, “with Justice”, with whatever?
Well, at the time Aznar was trying to criminalize the call by Basque premier Juan José Ibarretxe to a referendum to allow the Basque society to voice their opinion once and for all regarding their right to self-determination.
Aznar threatened Ibarretxe with up to five years in jail saying that such a move was against the Constitution. So, Aznar took this chance to group together ETA’s violence and the quest for self-determination via legal and pacific ways undertaken by the Basque society. For him, all Basques are the same, they are all terrorists trying to break up Spain, the Francoist Spain which is One and Catholic.
One of Aznar’s trolls went farther, he had hundreds of t-shirts printed with the words “They killed them because they were Spaniards”. Never mind that many of the victims were immigrants.
Once again, lets put those Basque terrorists on one side of the spectrum, and the innocent Spaniards on the other side, lets aggravate the chasm between one group and the other.
And in doing so, a police officer off duty killed Angel Berroeta, a baker in the Basque city of Iruñea (Pamplona) who was member of Gurasoak, an association of parents of Basque political prisoners.
But the evidence of an Islamist link to the attacks kept piling up, and drop by drop the information leaked to the people, and on Saturday 12th they went out to the streets to demand the truth.
And what Mariano Rajoy did?
Accused his own people, those Spaniards they claimed to be defending, he accused them of violating the Electoral Law. I say he deserves a Darwin Award for that one. He is the one that forged the link between the attacks and the upcoming elections in the minds of the public.
Would you really be thinking about the elections when 200 of your people have been murdered?
Well, Mariano Rajoy made sure they would.
By Sunday they could not cover up the truth no more, and that is when they finally accepted that it had been an Islamist group, by then, one more Basque had died victim of the repression against a demonstration by people mourning Angel Berroeta’s death.
On Election Day, the PP was defeated.
Aznar got a consolation prize as a lecturer at Georgetown University.
And a few days ago he took the opportunity to say that it had been all a big conspiracy against him and his PP. He blamed ETA, the Basques, all the opposition parties, the media, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein for the electoral defeat of his dauphin. He left out Oprah Winfrey and Tinky Winky, they were part of the evil conspiracy also.
He forgets that at the time he controlled the media, he forgets that the same media continued to blame ETA at his request even with a tape from an Al Quaeda splinter group claiming the authory, even with ETA issuing a communiqué denying their involvement, even with the arrest of Moroccans and Spaniards.
Now some people want to link Al Qaeda and ETA because “they bought guns and explosives from the same sources”. The sources being black market arm dealers, but no one is going after those, wonder why.
Someone in Barcelona says that there is a link with ETA because Spaniards have been arrested and prosecuted for the attacks, and since the Basques are Spaniards (including the ones from Iparralde in France I guess) then there must be a link, never mind the t-shirts that read, “They killed them because they were Spaniards”.
And out of fear of defeat, out of a wounded ego that saw his political legacy and career crashing down, he came up with a strategy that seemed brilliant to him and his followers; he decided to blame Basque nationalism.
He was killing two birds with one stone, on one side, he would make sure people would not see the Islamist threat as a result of his boneheaded decision to go to war in Iraq, on the other, he would fuel the fire of hate rage against anything and everything that had to do with Basque self-determination, being this his pet obsession.
And so, he ordered his ambassador to the UN to move for a condemnation of the attacks, blaming ETA in specific, something never done by the UN before in history.
In person, he phoned different newspaper directors, and requested from them to stick to the then, official version, it had been ETA.
His underling, Ana Palacio, sent a memorandum to all ambassadors instructing them to ensure that all of them would veer the media in each one of the countries they were located to think that the authory of the attacks was on ETA.
Angel Acebes, gladly took on the job of insisting ad nauseum that yes, ETA was behind the attacks. He went to the extreme of lying to the German anti-terrorist unit, making them believe that the explosives and the detonators used on the attacks were those that ETA uses to carry its bombings, as a result, the Germans dropped their guard, it was after all a case of domestic violence. Try to imagine if Al Qaeda had plans to attack in Germany that same day, they would have achieved surprise thanks to Acebes misguiding his German colleagues. That is a crime; it is indeed a heinous crime.
Then Aznar aimed his guns at Basque nationalism, he had his PP drones printing banners that read “With the Victims, with the Constitution, against Terrorism”.
Why “with the Constitution”?
What does the Constitution has to do with a terrorist attack?
Shouldn’t it say “with Peace”, “with Justice”, with whatever?
Well, at the time Aznar was trying to criminalize the call by Basque premier Juan José Ibarretxe to a referendum to allow the Basque society to voice their opinion once and for all regarding their right to self-determination.
Aznar threatened Ibarretxe with up to five years in jail saying that such a move was against the Constitution. So, Aznar took this chance to group together ETA’s violence and the quest for self-determination via legal and pacific ways undertaken by the Basque society. For him, all Basques are the same, they are all terrorists trying to break up Spain, the Francoist Spain which is One and Catholic.
One of Aznar’s trolls went farther, he had hundreds of t-shirts printed with the words “They killed them because they were Spaniards”. Never mind that many of the victims were immigrants.
Once again, lets put those Basque terrorists on one side of the spectrum, and the innocent Spaniards on the other side, lets aggravate the chasm between one group and the other.
And in doing so, a police officer off duty killed Angel Berroeta, a baker in the Basque city of Iruñea (Pamplona) who was member of Gurasoak, an association of parents of Basque political prisoners.
But the evidence of an Islamist link to the attacks kept piling up, and drop by drop the information leaked to the people, and on Saturday 12th they went out to the streets to demand the truth.
And what Mariano Rajoy did?
Accused his own people, those Spaniards they claimed to be defending, he accused them of violating the Electoral Law. I say he deserves a Darwin Award for that one. He is the one that forged the link between the attacks and the upcoming elections in the minds of the public.
Would you really be thinking about the elections when 200 of your people have been murdered?
Well, Mariano Rajoy made sure they would.
By Sunday they could not cover up the truth no more, and that is when they finally accepted that it had been an Islamist group, by then, one more Basque had died victim of the repression against a demonstration by people mourning Angel Berroeta’s death.
On Election Day, the PP was defeated.
Aznar got a consolation prize as a lecturer at Georgetown University.
And a few days ago he took the opportunity to say that it had been all a big conspiracy against him and his PP. He blamed ETA, the Basques, all the opposition parties, the media, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein for the electoral defeat of his dauphin. He left out Oprah Winfrey and Tinky Winky, they were part of the evil conspiracy also.
He forgets that at the time he controlled the media, he forgets that the same media continued to blame ETA at his request even with a tape from an Al Quaeda splinter group claiming the authory, even with ETA issuing a communiqué denying their involvement, even with the arrest of Moroccans and Spaniards.
Now some people want to link Al Qaeda and ETA because “they bought guns and explosives from the same sources”. The sources being black market arm dealers, but no one is going after those, wonder why.
Someone in Barcelona says that there is a link with ETA because Spaniards have been arrested and prosecuted for the attacks, and since the Basques are Spaniards (including the ones from Iparralde in France I guess) then there must be a link, never mind the t-shirts that read, “They killed them because they were Spaniards”.
Aznar is a liar, a professional one.
.... ... .
No comments:
Post a Comment