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2004 Madrid train bombings - Wikipedia
Have to say time flies. Today Spain remembers the fallen and wounded.
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20 years since the Madrid train bombings
- Thread starter PeteEU
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Have to say time flies. Today Spain remembers the fallen and wounded.
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Terrible chapter in Spain's history, so many things still in question today (from the wiki.)
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That was a dark chapter in the U.S. law enforcement annals as well. A fingerprint identified by the FBI as those belonging to an American lawyer who had recently converted to Islam. Turns out the FBI experts blew the identification. Based on provisions within the recently passed Patriot Act, the FBI completely violated the man's constitutional rights, arrested him, conducted illegal searches and were defiant even as the DOJ settled a $2 million lawsuit with the man.
LINK
LINK
Chagos
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Yeah, a terrible thing.
Nowhere near as terrible but just as disgusting was the way the government (in face of upcoming elections) handled the information on and after this tragedy.
The conservative PP still in office at the time feared public reaction inasmuch as the voters might chuck them out on account of the whole attack having been a result of Spain's most unpopular (domestically speaking) involvement in Iraq.
So they immediately blamed the ETA (Basque terrorist organization known for its past bombings and assassinations by all other means), in the same instance suppressing all increasing evidence of the attack having come from jihadists.
This caused massive turmoil thruout Spain with protests and demonstrations demanding that the PP tell the truth.
Where "foreign" stations reported on the conservative gubmint's lying (by displaying what actually pointed at jihadism), those stations were not available everywhere in Spain and notably not down here.
I still remember neighbors driving up from the village to my house in the "campo" to learn, knowing that I had Satellite, what actually was the truth. With a magnitude crowding my living room (sitting on chairs, the floor or standing) and myself translating from US, UK, French and German channels, while the Spanish TV channels were still peddling the government line of lies.
The subsequent fury among the "spectators" was indescribable.
It lost the conservative Aznar gubmint the election and analysis of public opinion immediately after the bombing appears to show that this loss was not due to the bombings themselves (IOW while those might have caused some voter loss, such loss would not have sufficed in ousting the whole disgraceful lot), but that it was the absolute display of dishonesty which got Aznar and his whole bunch of liars to be kicked to the curb.
That didn't stop the more radical conservative mouth-foamers (mainly in Spain but also years later on here) from accusing their PSOE successors of cowardice for pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq on account of the bombings. A move which had been part of the PSOE's campaign anyway, seeing how unpopular the war was in large parts of the public.
Ironically Aznar might still have kept his seat by whatever smaller margin and probably would have prevented that pull-out, had it not been for this lying to the public.
Among the crowd in my house were (at least) two ardent Francoists and they were as incensed as the whole rest. One of them showing his disgust in publicly voting the government out, by showing his ballot to everyone who cared to see it, before plunging it into the "box".
A tragedy followed by absolute disgrace.
Nowhere near as terrible but just as disgusting was the way the government (in face of upcoming elections) handled the information on and after this tragedy.
The conservative PP still in office at the time feared public reaction inasmuch as the voters might chuck them out on account of the whole attack having been a result of Spain's most unpopular (domestically speaking) involvement in Iraq.
So they immediately blamed the ETA (Basque terrorist organization known for its past bombings and assassinations by all other means), in the same instance suppressing all increasing evidence of the attack having come from jihadists.
This caused massive turmoil thruout Spain with protests and demonstrations demanding that the PP tell the truth.
Where "foreign" stations reported on the conservative gubmint's lying (by displaying what actually pointed at jihadism), those stations were not available everywhere in Spain and notably not down here.
I still remember neighbors driving up from the village to my house in the "campo" to learn, knowing that I had Satellite, what actually was the truth. With a magnitude crowding my living room (sitting on chairs, the floor or standing) and myself translating from US, UK, French and German channels, while the Spanish TV channels were still peddling the government line of lies.
The subsequent fury among the "spectators" was indescribable.
It lost the conservative Aznar gubmint the election and analysis of public opinion immediately after the bombing appears to show that this loss was not due to the bombings themselves (IOW while those might have caused some voter loss, such loss would not have sufficed in ousting the whole disgraceful lot), but that it was the absolute display of dishonesty which got Aznar and his whole bunch of liars to be kicked to the curb.
That didn't stop the more radical conservative mouth-foamers (mainly in Spain but also years later on here) from accusing their PSOE successors of cowardice for pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq on account of the bombings. A move which had been part of the PSOE's campaign anyway, seeing how unpopular the war was in large parts of the public.
Ironically Aznar might still have kept his seat by whatever smaller margin and probably would have prevented that pull-out, had it not been for this lying to the public.
Among the crowd in my house were (at least) two ardent Francoists and they were as incensed as the whole rest. One of them showing his disgust in publicly voting the government out, by showing his ballot to everyone who cared to see it, before plunging it into the "box".
A tragedy followed by absolute disgrace.