Inside Europe: Iberian Notes

Posted 18:52 by John

El Periodico, which is usually rather--how shall I put it? Bumwad? Bogroll? TP?--says that the cops have reconstructed how the 3/11 bombings in Madrid were carried out. Ten men placed the 14 bombs on the trains. Four of those who placed the bombs are already in custody; one is Jamal Zougam. The other six bombers' identities are known to the police, and they are all thought to have fled Spain. Numerous witnesses to the placing of the bombs and the actual explosions have identified these men, who are apparently all Arabs.

The bombers chose the date of March 11 specifically because it was exactly two and a half years after the 9/11 bombings, but they also planned to disrupt the March 14 elections, which they certainly succeeded in doing. Several of the bombers' conspirators are lowlifes involved in small-time drug and weapon trafficking, or small-time phone scammers--making it even less likely this was a professional job.

I really think that all they needed were ten guys to get on trains, leave a pre-loaded bag or two, and get off at the same station or, failing that, the next one down the line. They had somebody smart enough to figure out the train schedules, which isn't too hard since they're posted and given away on flyers at every station--though Zougam, for example, is clearly more than smart enough, you'd be surprised at the number of people who can't figure out something that simple--, they had somebody smart enough to make the bombs, and we know who he was, and they had the small-time prison connections that hooked them up with Suarez, the dynamite seller.

(Suarez and his brother-in-law got busted in 2001 with, get this, 84 kilos of hashish, three kilos of cocaine, 16 sticks of dynamite, and 94 detonators. What the hell were they doing out of jail? I know a guy in America who got six years in the slam for selling, admittedly, fairly large quantities of LSD through the mail, and he served all six in Leavenworth. Jeez. I couldn't smoke 84 kilos of hashish no matter how hard I tried, and believe me, I'd try.)

Then all the planners had to do was pass out the bombs, leave them on the trains, and bail out. I will bet that these guys who did the hit were mostly very low-level guys perhaps operating autonomously, though there's no question the money is Al Qaeda--no fanatic suicide bombers, no complicated training, nobody with specialized skills but one or two, nobody who had to plan five years ahead and get pilot training and all that stuff.

The brains behind the whole operation, Mr. Big himself, is one Abdelkarim Thami Mayati, a French citizen of Moroccan origin, according to the Moroccan cops. He is thought to be the operations boss of the Moroccan Combatant Group. The Moroccans have apparently arrested several dozen Islamic pro-terror activists and are sorting them out into people they're going to kill and people they're merely going to imprison, or something like that.

Posted 15:26 by John

You'll want to read this one. It's titled Anti-Semitism: Integral to European Culture, by Manfred Gerstenfeld; Front Page links to it. It's a long article, twelve pages; the link is to a PDF. It is worth every second it takes you to read this.

And while we're on the subject, here's Victor Davis Hanson explaining a few of the basic ethical differences between the Israeli government and the terrorists.

Posted 13:37 by John

Well, here's some more news from Spain. It hasn't even been a month since the 3/11 bombings and it seems like everybody's already forgotten about it. La Vanguardia is still running its biographical sketches of the victims, but the report on the investigation is on page 16. And it was only three weeks ago, on March 13 and 14, that everyone was screaming that the government had lied and they wanted the facts. Well, here's the facts, Jack: this was an Al Qaeda hit, the Moroccan Combatents Group is an Al Qaeda franchise, and Al Qaeda would have hit Spain whether it had sent troops to Iraq or not. You are at war with terrorism just as the rest of the West is, but the incoming Socialist government does not want to face this and so it's trying to avoid doing so, hoping Spain can get a free pass on terrorism if it is an obedient vassal of Al Qaeda. Wrong. The demands will just be higher next time. Now they know Spain scares easily, they're going to keep attacking here, and next thing you know we'll have to break off diplomatic relations with Israel or be forced to shelter terrorists here as long as they don't shit while they live. If you appease extortionists, they'll just come back for more, as anyone who has ever paid blackmail can tell you. And I thought Spain had learned something when Carod-Rovira tried to make exactly the same appeasement deal with ETA, in which Catalonia was declared an official terror-free zone (yeah, right, don't believe a word of anything ETA says, ever; Catalonia will get hit again just as soon as ETA feels like doing it.)

Anyway, a total of 22 persons have been arrested so far because of their connections to the 3/11 bombings. 14 of them have been arraigned and sent to jail without bail by Judge Juan del Olmo. The most recent hearing saw the jailing of Basel Ghayoun, a Syrian who was recognized by two witnesses at the scene of the loading of the bombs, and of a Moroccan named Hamid Ahmidam. Ahmidam's brother Said, another Moroccan named Fouad El Morabit, and a Syrian named Almallah Dabas Mouhammed were released without charges.

The five major figures arrested and jailed so far are Ghayoun and Moroccans Jamal Zougam, Mohammed Bakali, Mohammed Chaoui, and Abderrahim Zbakh. In addition, the apparently free-lance supplier of the dynamite, a Spaniard named Jose Manuel Suarez Trashorras, has been arrested and jailed. Two more arrests were made Monday; one is Suarez's former brother-in-law and the other is a North African.

The exchange of the Spanish troops in Iraq for new soldiers began yesterday; 160 left Zaragoza last night. Aznar demanded that Zap and the PSOE put their consent in writing; Zap did so grudgingly. Zap can't oppose the rotation of troops because the army guys there deserve to go back home; they've done the spell they were told they were going to do and now they must come home. But he's going to look like a real moron when he pulls the new troops out just a week after they all got there. Meanwhile, Zap promises that during the summer he'll double the size of the Spanish contingent in Afghanistan to 250; Afghanistan's OK, see, because the troops there are under UN command. But Iraq's not. You figure the logic. I can't. And Zap's not backing down on pulling all Spanish forces out of Iraq.

As for Zap's cabinet, there's a lot of speculation and few hard facts. Party baron Jose Bono will get Defense, Felipe holdover Pedro Solbes will get Foreign Affairs, and Jose Montilla, the Catalan party hack boss, will get some sort of super-Commerce ministry with several other fields like telecoms coming under it. There's also a shakeup in the PP; Rajoy stays on as party leader despite his defeat at the polls, because he would have won if not for the agitation on March 12 and 13. Angel Acebes is going to be his number two and Rajoy is putting his own people into the party organization posts. The names Carlos Aragones, Ana Pastor, and Jose Maria Michavila figure pretty big here, as does Eduardo Zaplana's.

Jacques Chirac (I'd rather off Jacques than jacques off) and his mess of a political coalition, the Union for a Presidential Majority, which beat Jean-Marie Le Pen in the last French presidential runoff (Jesus Christ. Here the French are criticizing us all the time and Jean-Marie Le Pen is the second-most-voted candidate for President in their country, not ours. And that crook Chirac, Saddam's towel boy, came in first) got massacred by the left in the French regional elections. The only place they won was Alsace. Now, you'd think this was great news, but the French Left is even worse than Chirac. The only French politician I respect is Alain Madelin.

Here in Catalonia they're already disobeying the PP's attempted overthrow of the idiotic American-ed-school-influenced school reforms that happened under the Socialists. They will not obey the regulations regarding tracking, a new less touchy-feely curriculum, professional training (for students), final exams, makeup exams, the flunking of students who fail more than three courses, and making religion an obligatory subject. I absolutely agree with all the proposed PP changes except for religion, which has no place in the public schools except when treated neutrally in history class.

They banned smoking in pubs in Ireland. That'll go over great there. Every single person I have ever seen in a Irish pub smokes. A lot. And bums cigs off you, because here's a dirty little secret: it's not just the Scots who are skinflints, it's 99% of residents of the British Isles. Interestingly, the subject isn't being treated hysterically over here in the Spanish media like the various smoking bans in parts of the United States are--you know, health police interfering with people's freedom, typical American Puritans wanting to keep people from having fun. Of course, it's not the Americans doing it this time, so it must be all right.

Rafael Ramos, in his typically imbecilic article on the subject, writes "It's the greatest revolution since the potato famine of 1847 and the mass emigration to the United States." Gee, Raffy, do the words "Easter Rising" or "Sinn Fein" or "Michael Collins" or "IRA" mean anything to you?

Posted 16:31 by John

Here's Satan himself, Mr. Neocon, who along with Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz drinks the blood of Christian bab--oops, sorry, been reading La Vanguardia again. Here's Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard on why the Richard Clarke flap doesn't mean a damned thing. The exchange quoted is from the Congressional hearing; Gorton is Senator Slade Gorton of Washington state.

GORTON: Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?

CLARKE: No.

There have been occasions in the past when government officials properly took responsibility for actions under their direction that went terribly awry. Janet Reno accepted responsibility for the deaths in Waco in 1993. John Kennedy took responsibility for the Bay of Pigs in 1961. In those cases, apparently reckless U.S. government actions directly caused unnecessary deaths. On September 11, 2001, al Qaeda killed 3,000 Americans. It would be no more appropriate for President Bush to apologize today than it would have been for President Roosevelt to apologize for Pearl Harbor. Richard Clarke's pseudo-apology has cheapened the public discourse.

Posted 16:12 by John

For information on who's behind the Madrid bombings, check out this Michael Ledeen piece in the National Review. I'm pretty sure the information Ledeen gives us is basically true, and if Ledeen is right, then this is all the same war, a position we've held to ever since 9/11.

Posted 15:45 by John

Here's a nice article by David Greenberg in Slate. The subject is whether war Presidents always get reelected; Greenberg points out that both Lincoln and FDR had problems getting reelected in 1864 and 1944, respectively, and that Truman would have been defeated in 1952 and Lyndon Johnson defeated in 1968 if they had run. In addition, if Wilson had been capable of running in 1920--he'd been incapacitated by at least three different strokes and his wife was basically running the Executive branch--he'd have lost; by then the First World War was over, of course. George Bush I, a war president, lost in 1992, as we all know.

It seems to me that Bush is doing pretty well in the polls--from what I gather, they're running more or less 50-50--for this stage in the campaign. The Democrats have made all the noise, of course, and they'll keep making most of it until their convention at the end of July. Then it'll be time for the Republican convention at the beginning of September, and the Republicans will get the publicity bounce. This is nothing new or anything we invented; it's pretty much the standard pattern. Many reelected Presidents--Reagan in 1984 and Clinton in 1996 being the two most recent--had been much more unpopular at some point in their terms than Bush is now, or has ever been.

Here's my wild-ass guess, seven months and a half from the election: Barring disaster, Bush wins fairly handily though not hugely. He wins the election when he holds Florida and Ohio and wins a couple or three more states that the Dems won last time, say Iowa and Wisconsin. Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania are not impossible dreams. Illinois will be tough. If Bush wins Illinois it's a romp. He probably won't though, but that's a state I'd fight hard. Most of the battle is going to be in Florida and the Great Lakes states. The Dems will probably win in California, but I'd fight there too, at least for fundraising and local-candidate support. There's a lot of Republican sentiment in that state, and some grass-roots activity will force the Dems to spend hard-to-get money fighting there. If I were the Reps I'd write off New England (except New Hampshire and maybe Maine, and I wouldn't waste much money there over eight electoral votes), New York, and New Jersey. The Reps ought to win all the South and Plains states, no problem--if they don't, it's a Kerry romp--, and ought to do all right in the non-California West. The only places I'd out-and-out favor the Dems are Washington, Oregon, and New Mexico, in that order.

Posted 14:54 by John

Read this piece by Michael Kazin from Dissent, which was picked up by Front Page, on the world's only rival to Noam Chomsky in mendacious anti-Americanism and pseudo-history, Howard Zinn. Mr. Zinn is the author of The People's History of the United States, a notorious conglomeration of conspiracy theory and falsehood. Kazin destroys both Mr. Zinn and his book.

I once owned a copy of said People's History. It was given to me by a good friend of mine named Jane, who used to live here in Barcelona. About Jane's only fault was a slightly hung-over '60s leftism (that and she was a packrat; she piled up amazing quantities of junk that should have been thrown away years ago as a goddamn health hazard); she'd actually been at Altamont, for example, and knew minor Beat poets and stuff like that. Anyway, she left that particular book to me when she went back to the States. I got about as far as the American Revolution before deciding that this was a complete waste of my time unless I wanted to do a seven-hundred-page Fisking. I then donated it to a charity auction some friends were having, where it went for five euros or so.

Maybe I should have burned it; it's undoubtedly gone on to poison another mind or two. It's been translated to Spanish and is a big seller over here, where it is of course taken seriously just as the ravings of Noam Chomsky and the gibberish of Susan Sontag and the pretentiousness of Paul Auster and the flat-out stupidity of Michael Moore are.

Posted 12:20 by John

In Memoriam

We've been posting short biographical sketches of the people killed in the 3/11 bombings in Madrid. Our source is La Vanguardia.

Miguel Reyes Mateos, office worker, 37, Alcala de Henares. Miguel was a civil servant who worked in the Immigration department of the Labor Ministry. He leaves his parents and his three brothers; he lived with his girlfriend in Alcala. He was especially fond of his seven-year old niece.

Sonia Cano Campos, receptionist, 24, Coslada. Sonia lived with her parents. She was a lively and friendly person who loved going out, dancing, and having fun. Sonia went to dance classes to learn how to do sevillanas. She worked as a receptionist in a nursing home.

Enrique Garcia Gonzalez, electrician, 29, Mostoles. Enrique was killed while helping other victims; he was on the platform when the first bomb in the Atocha Station train went off. He jumped down on the tracks and began helping people out of the train; then the second bomb went off and killed him. Enrique's father is Spanish and his mother is Dominican; he was born in the Dominican and came to Spain when he was 13. He worked with his brother and his cousin installing air-conditioning. Enrique had three different children, 2, 4, and 6 years old, by different marriages. He enjoyed dancing and Caribbean music.

Teresa Gonzalez Grande, cleaner, 36, Vallecas. Teresa worked on the janitorial staff at the Universidad Complutense. She lived with her boyfriend in an apartment they had just bought. The university held an homage ceremony for her.

Anca Bodea, teacher, 25, Guadalajara. Anca was from Romania; she had arrived in Madrid last December. She worked as a language teacher for children and lived with some Romanian friends. She planned to go back to Romania for a visit soon. It took them a week to identify her body.

Francisco Javier Casas Torresano, painter, 28, Getafe. Javier worked as a computer operator, but he wanted to be an artist. He'd taken a course in painting and worked in a surrealist style. He was about to move in with his girlfriend. His friends remember him as creative and original. He was a good-looking young man with a big mop of black hair.

John Jairo Ramirez Bedoya, cleaner, 37, Torrejon de Ardoz. John was from Colombia and had been in Spain for five years. He was a small man, with black curly hair and a mustache. His wife is expecting their child. They planned to visit Colombia in November. John was saving up because his dream was to open a florist's shop.

Maria Eugenia Ciudad-Real, bank employee, 26, Leganes. Maria Eugenia had just begun her first real job fifteen days ago at a BBVA branch. She had studied business and was serious and hard-working. She leaves her parents and her brother, with whom she lived.

Angel Pardillos Checa, civil servant, 62, Santa Eugenia. Angel had worked at the Banco de Espana for more than
thirty years. He was from a small town in Aragon to which he and his wife returned every summer. He had a daughter and a son and three grandchildren he was wild about. His daughter had just gotten married six months ago. He was going to retire in a few months; they identified his body by the watch he was wearing, which the bank had given him when he completed his 30th year.

Daniel Paz Manjon, student, 20, Villa de Vallecas. Daniel was studying at the National Institute of Physical Fitness. He was an excellent soccer player and enjoyed singing and playing the guitar; he liked to go to clubs where singer-songwriters play. Dani was shy but had literally dozens of friends. He was on his way to gymnastics class when the bomb went off at El Pozo.

Carlos Soto Arranz, welder, 34, San Sebastian de los Reyes. Carlos had had some tough breaks; both his parents died when he was 14. He had to quit school and get a job. He was married; he and his wife had a 14-month-old daughter along with two sons of hers by a previous marriage. They formed a close family. Carlos also leaves two brothers.

Sergio Dos Santos, electrician, 28, Vallecas. Sergio was from Parana in Brazil and had been in Spain for six months. He had decided to emigrate and save up 7000 euros to buy a house back in Parana, but it wasn't easy even though Sergio was a religious man and led an ascetic life. Sergio leaves his wife and their four-year-old son.

Posted 16:30 by John

Here's the news on the 3/11 bombings. They've discovered the house, little more than a shack, where the bombs were made. The fingerprints of Jamal Zougam and Abderrahim Zbakh--Zbach is the actual bombmaker--were found in the house, along with traces of dynamite and several detonators. Other fingerprints found are clues to the involvement of others, still not arrested.

Posted 15:52 by John

Want some mindless Old European anti-Semitism? La Vanguardia's got it! They run an alleged humor page every Sunday written by some schmuck named Jaume Collell, which is really just about the least funny thing I have ever seen. Well, today we've got a big-nosed, thick-lipped, Der Sturmer-style caricature of Ariel Sharon and a "poem" signed by the "Marquis de Esade". Esade is a famous Barcelona business school, you see. That's supposed to be a joke. Get it?

Here's the original Spanish.

Ved el lider pacifista,
el mahatma Ariel Sharon,
que con sangria nazista
y muro de contencion

siembra la paz en los muertos.
¡Que notable judiada!
Miles de cuerpos yertos
que ya no protestan nada.

Los que fueron masacrados
son ahora los verdugos.
Sucede con los tarados
cuando gobiernan tarugos.

"¡Despierta, o Israel!"
dicen las Escrituras,
que si sigues con Ariel
te comeras tus basuras.

Here's the best translation I can do.

See the pacifist leader,
Mahatma Ariel Sharon,
who with Nazi bloodshed
and his wall of subjection

sows peace among the dead.
What a Jewing!*
Thousands of stiff bodies
who now can protest nothing.

Those who were massacred
Are now the executioners
That happens when the foolish
Are governed by martinets.

Awaken, o Israel!
Say the Scriptures
If you stay with Ariel
You will eat your own excrement.

* According to the Diccionario de la Real Academia, which I used to check and correct my translation, the Spanish word "judiada" means "A wrong or bad action, tendentiously considered as worthy of Jews."

This is quite possibly the most offensive and hateful thing I have ever seen printed in the Vanguardia. And, don't forget, it's on the "Humor" page.

Posted 11:41 by John

In Memoriam

We're posting short biographical sketches of the people killed in the 3/11 bombings in Madrid. Source: La Vanguardia.

Sam Djoco, laborer, 42, Torrejon de Ardoz. Sam was from Senegal, where he had a wife and six children ranging from three to 18 years old. Sam immigrated illegally to Spain on a raft in 1997, but he got his papers and had bought a small house, where he wanted to move his family. Sam's brother and his nephew, who lived in France, were visiting him when their family reunion was broken up by the bombing. Sam was killed at El Pozo.

Miguel Antonio Serrano, plumber, 28, Leganes. Miguel lived with his mother and his five brothers and sisters. He worked as a plumber with his brother-in-law. His friends say he was a funny guy who did good imitations and that he loved playing the guitar.

Pedro Hermida, bank employee, 51, Rivas-Vaciamadrid. Pedro was the director of foreign operations for Caixa Catalunya in Madrid. His co-workers remember him above all as honest and responsible; he was a union activist. He was married with three children; he was a family man who enjoyed movies and sports.

Esteban de Benito, 39, Santa Eugenia. Everyone called him "Tebitan". Esteban was married with two daughters; he loved motorcycles and soccer. He picked his daughters up from school every day and took care of them all afternoon. He worked as a home repairman; he could fix anything. He and his family planned to spend their next vacation on the beach in Alicante, where they had a small summer house.

Posted 11:28 by John

For all you other ailurophiles out there, here's a story and a photo about a kitten in Germany that was born with four ears. Check it out. I've never seen a four-eared cat before, but polydactylism (extra toes) is very common among both cats and dogs.

Posted 10:39 by John

The American press is now ahead of the Spanish press regarding the 3/11 bombings. Here's the Fox News story on the continuing investigation.

Posted 23:06 by John

I have a question: What sort of normal heterosexual man dumps both Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz? Answer: None. But Tom Cruise has dumped Penelope after three years of being his beard. So, guys, she's now available, as if she probably weren't already since I doubt that ol' Tom was doing his manly duty by her. Nice publicity move by Penelope; guess she couldn't stand it any longer, though.

Posted 12:15 by John

Looks like Zap's Spain has made a deal with the Frogs and Toads in Brussels, which, greatly simplified, means that Spain will accept less power in the EU executive in exchange for a little more power in the EU legislative and readmission to the Axis of Weasels. The Poles, left twisting in the wind, have been forced to sign on, too. Aznar and the Poles had been holding out for more power for the mid-sized countries in the executive branch.

According to the Vanguardia, Josef Joffe wrote in Die Zeit, in a front-page article titled "The Islamofascist offensive; Appeasement is not the answer; The Spanish people draw the wrong lesson from the Madrid attentats", "In Spain terror has, for the first time, terror has won an election." I admire Mr. Joffe very much; he occasionally writes in the American political journal The New Republic, mostly on European issues, and his articles are always worth reading. And Angela Merkel of the German Christian Democrats said, "No government can give in to terrorist blackmail. We cannot permit the terrorists to "divide and conquer" in Europe. Nobody should try to buy security in exchange for "good" behavior."

Meanwhile, the EU made a declaration on terrorism that actually might mean a little something; they proclaimed that they will defend any member threatened by terrorism by any means, not excluding military force. I guess that's sort of hard-line; at least it's some kind of line. They also declared March 11 to be the European Day of Victims of Terrorism, for whatever that's worth, and promised some sort of unification of antiterrorist intelligence under Interpol (one of the several Nazi innovations that continued after the Nazis were sent packing in utter defeat and eternal disgrace; others were the Coal and Steel Community, the autobahns, the Volkswagen, dubbed Hollywood movies, and the American rocket program.)

Aznar, who as you know is still Prime Minister, has made it known that the relief and replacement of the Spanish troops in Iraq--standard military procedure, pull units on duty out of the line after a certain time and replace them with fresh men, this has been planned for months--will happen on schedule on April 21, while Aznar will still be PM. (Zap will not take over until the first week of May.) He's asked Zap to commit himself on paper, since the Socialist Party has asked the Government not to make any important decision without consulting them. Good one. If Zap agrees that the relief should happen, he'll look pretty dumb pulling those guys out like three weeks after they arrive; if he disagrees with the relief, then he looks like a jerk for extending those soldiers' Iraq duty for three weeks or so after they were supposed to come home; and if he dithers, he looks like, well, a ditherer.

Gee, guess which big story NOBODY is paying the slightest bit of attention to? Let me give you a hint: it's on page 15 of yesterday's Vanguardia and page 13 of today's. That shows how important it is, really, in people's eyes. Let me give you another hint: it's the issue that supposedly brought the PP government down. Right! It's the investigation into the Madrid bombings!

On Wednesday Judge Juan del Olmo bound over two more suspects in the 3/11 bombings, who had been arrested over the weekend in the third wave of arrests. They are Moroccans named Rafa Zuher and Naima Oulad Akcha, the latter the only woman arrested so far. These people are going into solitary confinement with no contact with a lawyer. For the next four years; then they have to be tried. And the Spaniards have the gall to criticize the Americans for Guantanamo, where, by the way, the number of innocent people is, I repeat, approximately zero. One of her brothers, in prison in Salamanca for robbery and battery, is also a suspect. The other two are still awaiting arraignment.

The fourth wave of arrests happened Wednesday night and Thursday morning. All five arrestees are Moroccan. Three were busted in a small town in Toledo called Ugena and the other two were arrested in Madrid. The Ugena Three are big fish of some kind, probably sharks; they were residents of Germany and have been known as members of extremist Islamic groups for many years. The German police say they have ties to Mohammed Atta's Hamburg Al Qaeda cell.

So far, the arrestees have been connected to Al Qaeda networks in Morocco, Britain, France, Norway, Germany, and, get this, Iraq. The biggest fish arrested so far besides the Ugena Three are Jamal Zougam, one of the leaders and the man with the connections, and Abderrahim Zbach, who seems to be the actual bombmaker.

Gee, I thought El Pais and the Socialists and SER Radio were saying the Spaniards voted the PP out because they weren't finding out who did it fast enough and were covering up the truth about the investigation. This seems to me like pretty good police work and complete governmental honesty regarding the matter. The government spokesman even announced that some information was being held for obvious reasons regarding the secrecy of the investigation, and nobody even said boo.

The police investigation is rolling along, with many more arrests foreseen in the next few days.

Here's CNN International on the story. CNN's got another article on a Zap speech to a Socialist Party conference, in which he "bristled at the notion" that Spaniards were cowards. (Note: To be specific, we said, and stand by it, that those 40% of Spaniards who voted for the PP or CiU, or the Socialists in the Basque country, are not cowards. The rest voted for Zap or somebody even worse.) Anyway, here's CNN on Zap:

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged not to give in to terrorists, bristling at the notion that the Spanish are "cowards" when it comes to facing terrorism.

"No Spanish government has given into terror and no government will do that," Zapatero told a Socialist Party conference Friday.

He was referring to more than 30 years of terror attacks in Spain at the hands of Basque separatists.

True. The Spanish government and the Spanish people have never given in to ETA, to their eternal credit. They made some errors under the Felipe regime when they tried to "have a dialogue" with that gang of murderers, but Spain has never surrendered...not to ETA.

But the Spanish people gave in to Al Qaeda without firing a shot, when they elected a governing political party which promised to do exactly that. And, Mr. Zap, that new governing chickenshit political party is precisely yours.

(Oh, by the way, Mr. CNN, whoever you are, please call ETA what they are, terrorists. "Separatists" are PEACEFUL. I think the Basque non-violent separatist party Eusko Alkartasuna and the Catalan non-violent separatist Republican Left of Catalonia are a bunch of idiots, but they want a peaceful separation of their regions from the rest of Spain. They are attempting to come to power by democratic means. They are separatists, not terrorists. Terrorists are something completely different. Much as I disagree with them, the real separatists condemn violence and do not want to impose a dictatorship, unlike ETA or Al Qaeda.)

Posted 03:40 by John

Here's Jose Maria Aznar's signed article from the Wall Street Journal yesterday; we'd have linked it then but we don't have a subscription. (Their featured article is subscription-only the first day; after that it's free.) Read it.

Posted 17:08 by John

Here's what's going on in Spain. Again, we really don't have much that the American media doesn't have. Here's the report from CNN International.

Looks like in the European Union constitutional debate, Zap's Spain is going to bail and sign up with the French and Germans and accept a smaller slice of the power pie, leaving the Poles in the lurch.

They're making a big deal around here out of, get this, the humiliation of the Palestinian bomber boy who was intercepted by the Israelis, NOT KILLED, because the Israelis give a damn about human life and try to kill as few people who don't deserve it as they can. So they stripped him to his underwear and made him kneel down and pointed guns at him because, uh, HE HAD A BOMB. Jeez. If I'd been an Israeli soldier right there and then I'd have shot at anything resembling a suicide bomber. Thank God those guys were smarter and braver than me and held their fire. By the way, they've determined the poor kid is probably retarded. He will, of course, be well cared-for. The Israelis, unilke some of the regimes in their neighborhood, are basically decent.

Here's today's political cartoon by Toni Batllori in the Vanguardia. Batllori really does have his finger on local politics, though he's done some pretty awful anti-American and anti-Israeli stuff in the past. Anyway, Zap is a dwarf and Colin Powell is a giant whom we can only see up to the knees. Says Powell, "I've heard that you want to withdraw your troops from Iraq. Is that true?" Replies Zap, "If the UN doesn't take over, yes." Says Powell, "I'm not sure you are aware of the damage you could cause us, Mr. Zapatero." Zap replies, "Sorry." Powell asks, "What do you think about fixing something up with the UN?" Zap says, "No, 'Just plain No'." Replies Powell, "So 'Just plain No'?" Like you said about joining NATO?" Zap says, "No, at least for now we mean it."

The joke is that in the 1982 election, the Socialists ran on the anti-NATO slogan, "OTAN, de entrada, no," which I translated as 'Just plain No' but which has a fairly obvious double meaning in Spanish. Then they had a referendum on joining NATO, I think in '86, in which the Socialists flipped and supported Spanish membership in NATO. NATO membership won.

Posted 15:54 by John

My friend Big T, the Man from Kazakhstan, wrote the following parable of the Spanish elections. I don't personally agree with him--I'd have voted to rehire the PP on the grounds that though I'll admit they are unaesthetic at times, I think they do a pretty good job. But it's well worth a read, and a lot of intelligent people agree with Big T, who (I'll keep this information very general in order to disguise his identity) was a teacher of business at a prestigious university program and is now some kind of computer genius. His passion is music and he knows everything about everything regarding the subject. He has seen several parts of the world that most people haven't.

Here's how trustworthy he is: Several of our friends have him do their tax returns. I'd ask him to do ours but one of Remei's cousins who works for a bank does it already.

Imagine the following situation.

A shop attendant is hired by the owner of a candy store. He is a good employee, works hard and increases sales for the store. Every day some people steal items (chewing gum) from the store, but there is a regular bunch of visitors (called #) who steal the most product near the counter.

When he talks with the shop owner and discuss the theft issue, the shop attendant blames all the theft on #. "You know how they are", he says. The owner agrees, but wishes that the shop attendant would just carry on with his job, avoid theft whenever possible, and did not blame every robbery on #.

Then, one day, while the shop attendant was at the back of the store tidying it up, hears some noise and, when he gets to the counter… all the chewing gum from the store disappears! The shop attendant doubts: Who was it? Was it #? Or somebody else? And it could not come at a worse time. Apart from the theft, he has been doing a good job (some customers do not like his manners, but he knows how to sell candy) and his contract is up for renewal the very next day.

But before he can think about it, the owner comes, sees what has happened, and asks for an explanation. The shop attendant goes for his usual story: "It was #. Always was, always will".

The owner is not surprised at the shop attendant's answer: He has been saying this every time he asked him, and certainly knows # is bad. But, in a surprise move, he says:

"Well, this time we shall be able to know who did it. I installed some in-store cameras and they filmed everything. Let's see what happened"

The film shows that it was... %%! The shop attendant is surprised. When he was at the back of the store when the robbery took place, the noises he heard were typical of #,… but could have been made by someone else. It was not #! What can he do now?

The shop attendant looks at the tape again. Ah! He recognizes one or two of the faces. They live not too far from the shop. He tells the shop owner: "Do not worry. I'll get them".

And off he goes. He spends the rest of the day looking for them and sending SMS to the owner reporting his progress on his search.

The very next day, he comes back to the shop, when his contract is up for renewal. The shop attendant says:

"Look. I made a mistake on blaming # for the robbery... But I have already traced some of the thieves and one of them has just been already arrested by the police. When thinking about my renewal, please consider that my track record shows that I have been a good employee (sales have increased while I have been working here). I know that theft is an area I can (and will) work harder. Now what do you say?"

The owner answers:

"Look, I know you have been a good employee on sales... but maybe someone else can get the same level as you do. However the thing that has been annoying me of late (specially yesterday) has been your attitude towards all the stealing in the store. I think that, if you had put on a bigger effort in trying to protect my shop - remember it belongs to me and you are my employee -, you might have detected not only our regular thief # but also %% as well. You always blamed # -bad people, up to no good, and guilty of a lot of things, I agree… but not this one- and this distracted you from the fact that there could be other people interested in stealing chewing gum”.

And then continues:

"I appreciate very much your efforts trying to find %%. They show that you can be and are competent. But do not forget that, when you were doing this, your were doing your job - as my employee -. I would not have expected anything less from you. Putting all things into consideration, yesterday night I made my decision: I am not going to renew your contract. I shall contract a new store attendant whom I expect to have a nicer attitude to the clients, work on theft and achieve your sales record."

The shop attendant does not move and is thinking of shouting "After all I have done for you!", but refrains. He knows who the next shop attendan will be. Yes, he is a nice guy but somehow inexperienced. The shop attendant knows that, in a year's time, he can get his job back. And remembers what qualities got him the gig the first time around: Incompetence from his predecessor and a good job interview (where he stressed efficiency as his goal instead of his bossy attitude).

Morale:

Think about it and ask yourself/selves

1) Would you have fired the shop attendant?

2) Do you think that the shop attendant, despite his conduct and faults at handling the robbery, should have kept his job on the basis of his track record and quickness in finding the real thieves?

3) Would you consider that the shop owner has a moral obligation to keep the shop attendant because -although he caught him misinforming him thanks to the camera- the attendant rose to the occasion and got the thieves?

4) Is it your business / my business to care about how a shop owner hires his employees - as long as he fulfills his obligations, pays his taxes and is a law-abiding citizen?

Of course the shop owner might be making a mistake. We can say it to him, pointing at the sales increase.

Maybe the shop owner will say: "Thank you for your insight. I might be wrong, but I look at the full picture when making my decisions. Maybe I should forget about some faults from my employees, which I might be guilty of myself..."

Maybe he will take a deep breath, sign, look at us and say firmly "But, at the end of the day, it is my store".

Bonus questions

5) Discuss if our opinion about or the rationale behind the shop owner's statement ("It is my store") would change if he had said "It is my country" (from capitalist to patriot?), "My country, right or wrong" (a patriot with capitalist feelings?) or "My store, right or wrong" (patriotic capitalism? is it possible?).

6) Which of the following statements from the shop attendant to the owner is more likely to get his job back:

a) "Don't be stupid and give me back my job"
b) "Don't make a stupid decision and please give me another go at the job"

Apologies for any spelling / grammar mistakes. I hope that more people would listen to Nick Lowe-penned, Elvis Costello-rendered and Bill Murray-karaoke-Lost-In-Translation-performed "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" and wish for a lower rank for anger in the current state of the world chart (and this forum, which can host any opinion but does not need shouting, dissing, screaming, four letter words,... you know... for making good points)

Signing off with an extract from Otis Redding's "Respect"

Ooo, your kisses (oo)
Sweeter than honey (oo)
And guess what? (oo)
So is my money (oo)
All I want you to do (oo) for me
Is give it to me when you get home (re, re, re ,re)
Yeah baby (re, re, re ,re)
Whip it to me (respect, just a little bit)
When you get home, now (just a little bit)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB

The Man From Kazakhstan

Posted 15:30 by John

Here's a rather joyful Spanish nationalist editorial from today's Vanguardia, on page 2, signed by the high muckety-muck Director himself, Jose Antich.

Less than half an hour of the meeting between Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and the American secretary of state Colin Powell, at the end of the state funerals held yesterday in Madrid, was enough for the next Prime Minister to teach the Bush Administration the new rules of the game. In the first place, there will be a withdrawal of the Spanish troops in Iraq if the UN does not have control of the country by then. Zapatero insisted that he had made an electoral promise before 3/11 and that the terrible bombing committed in Madrid would not change his position. Although Powell already knew the decision of the next Spanish prime minister, for the Bush Administration the stopwatch has already started in order to give a necessary role to the UN, if it does not want to see the more than inevitable medium-term collapse of the international coalition in Iraq. Zapatero's position, welcome to Chirac and Schroder, also present in Madrid, will shake up the European chessboard and resituate Spain in the Franco-German axis, to the detriment of the Atlantic axis on which Aznar had based his foreign policy over the last few years. It is no accident that yesterday in the Moncloa [Aznar's residence] only Powell, Blair, and Polish prime minister Leszek Miller came to visit.

Oh, Zap's Spain is going to teach the Yankees a lesson, is it? Look: America hates to lose Spain as an ally, but if that's what Zap wants, that's what he's going to get. Spain is what we wargamers think of as a "desirable but not necessary" ally. Sorry to see y'all leave, but, hey, if you've decided you're going, don't let the door hit you in the ass. I imagine they will figure out some sort of formula, possibly some kind of UN command for non-Anglo-American forces in Iraq. That'll put those guys in the role of blue helmets and we'd have to occupy their areas (the northern parts of Shiite Iraq, very peaceful) militarily in order to actually have some law enforcement / security control over the zone, since they wouldn't actually be able to shoot at any malefactors in that case. But everybody's face will get saved.

Antich's last sentence is a shot at Aznar, by the way: after the state funeral, attended by dignitaries from all over the world, the only people who went to visit Aznar personally were Powell, Blair, and close ally Poland's Miller. Everyone else was kissing Zap's butt.

Posted 00:04 by John

The Spanish left likes to portray Prime Minister Aznar as an American puppet, as someone whose decisions are made for him by the gringos in Washington. Nothing could be more false. Aznar is very highly respected, at least in conservative circles, in the United States, and Spain's support of the US was not taken for granted. The Aznar government was genuinely appreciated. Spain was a prime ally and its concerns got a damn good hearing. Spain hasn't seen unfriendly behavior from the United States for years, due to Aznar and his policies. Zap, on the other hand, seems to believe France has more to offer while the Americans peel off Germany from the Axis of Weasels. Warning to Zap: France is not popular in the US these days. You side with them and you'll get treated like they do.

Here's National Review's Jay Nordlinger:

Before we forget him — and we should not forget him — can we praise outgoing Spanish prime minister Aznar?

Said this bold, wise — this great — man two days ago, "When there's been an attack as brutal as Spain has suffered, when the fight against international terror is everyone's main battle, one must fulfill responsibilities. I think sending a message that you can beat terrorism with concessions is wrong."

And I think José María Aznar is a miracle.

I think Mr. Nordlinger means what he says.

Meanwhile, here's James Taranto from the Wall Street Journal:

A Spanish basketball team, Pamesa Valencia, says it may beg off on a scheduled game against the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv because it fears terrorism, the Jerusalem Post reports:

Valencia announced yesterday that as a result of the increasing security threats in Israel after the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on Monday morning, the team does not plan to come to Tel Aviv for the match.

In a statement released on the club's Web site, Valencia said that "the climate of tension and the situation of violence which is only escalating are not conducive to playing basketball and that the team is not prepared to play under these conditions. The team's mental state is not good [because of the situation] and it will only get worse upon entering the warlike atmosphere, for the players as well as their families."

Maybe they should play in Spain, which is safe from terrorism.

Posted 13:33 by John

Check out this piece by Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard, who is reporting from Baghdad. Check out the first paragraph of his piece:

THE IRAQI PRESS CORPS routinely peppers spokesmen for the American military and the Coalition Provisional Authority with loaded questions about why U.S. soldiers are picking on innocent Iraqi citizens. The Spanish reporters here make it clear they're not sympathetic to America's role in Iraq. But nobody in the media covering postwar Iraq can top the Brits for injecting anti-American themes in their questions.

Now, why do you suppose Mr. Barnes particularly notices some of the Brits and all of the Spaniards are obnoxiously anti-American--rather than, say, Italians, Japanese, Danes, or Swiss, all of whom must have at least several reporters present in Baghdad? Gee, I dunno.

Here, also from the Weekly Standard, is Larry Miller's attempt at humor regarding the situation in Spain since 3/11. Miller manages to spell two words wrong in one paragraph ("Catalan" and "pelota") and doesn't seem to know that it wasn't Aznar who got beat in the election, it was his handpicked successor, Mariano Rajoy. Still, if you're a European who wants to know what a reasonably articulate and fairly well-informed American thinks about events in Europe, read this one. It might help you out if you're trying to understand the American Average Joe and what makes him tick.

I normally don't much like Joe Walsh but he had a song a few years ago that I thought was pretty funny called "Ordinary Average Guy", which is sort of what Walsh has been in music since the 70s, a blue-collar rock and roller, a Pete Rose kind of guy, not much natural talent but a lot of effort. If I recall, some of the words go like this:

On Saturday morning I clean up the yard
Pick up the dog doo, hope that it's hard
This afternoon I clean out the garage
My friend's got a Chrysler, I've got a Dodge
I'm just an ordinary average guy

Posted 13:00 by John

While we're on interviews, in this one from National Review with Kenneth Timmermann, former New York Times correspondent who has lived in France for 18 years, there are all kinds of answers to interesting questions, like what was the deal between Chirac and Saddam, why the Bush Administration is so angry with Chirac and the French government, and what role oil really played in the Iraq War.

Here's a Bill Kristol piece from the Weekly Standard, in which he rather predictably gives Zap and the Spanish electorate a good verbal thrashing similar to those we've been handing out over the past few days. Kristol then goes all wobbly on us, saying that maybe the problem is that the United States isn't getting its message across to the people of other nations. Well, yeah, but that's pretty hard to do in someplace like Spain, where the universally anti-American media isn't going to help us present that message and, in fact, will label all American attempts to get its message across as blatant propaganda not to be trusted. As for appealing directly to the people, how do you do that without media cooperation? Kristol's just not in touch with reality about popular feelings toward the United States in Europe. He seems to think they can be changed. I know he's wrong.

Posted 12:08 by John

La Vanguardia's back-page interview today goes to Angel Esteban, who is a professor of Latin American literature at the University of Granada. He's written a book about the friendship between Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Colombian author Gabriel "Gabo" Garcia Marquez; here are some excerpts from the interview. The interviewer is Victor M. Amela.

Q. To what extent are Castro and Garcia Marquez friends?
A. For both of them, this friendship is worth much more than love.
Q. But I'm sure something could break it.
A. Nothing. Nothing could break it up.
Q. Nothing?
A. Only the death of one of the two.
Q. That friendship is that solid?
A. Gabo has already said he won't set foot in Cuba if Fidel dies before he does. And Fidel doesn't have any other friends left except Gabo.

Q. Gabo is against the death penalty.
A. Yes. But he shuts up when Castro imposes it. A short time ago, despite the executions in Cuba--criticized by Saramago, Sontag, and Grass--Gabo avoided criticizing his friend Fidel.
Q. And why did it take so long to establish that friendship between Garcia Marquez and Castro?
A. Although Gabo wrote sympathetically about Cuba, and tried many times to get into Fidel's circle, Fidel didn't trust him; he saw him as an intellectual who "watches the bullfight from the seats". He trusted Julio Cortazar and, above all, Mario Vargas Llosa.
Q. Vargas Llosa! Who would imagine that today?
A. Vargas Llosa was a very active revolutionary activist, capable of placing bombs.
Q. And what broke up the Mario-Fidel romance?
A. The case of the revolutionary Cuban poet Heberto Padilla: Fidel considered one of his books of poetry "counterrevolutionary", jailed him, tortured him, and forced him to recant in public in 1971. This scandalized comrades Vargas Llosa, Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, and others, who signed letters protesting against this Stalinist attitude toward the revolution.

Q. Did Garcia Marquez sign too?
A. He dodged it. And in 1975 he traveled to Cuba and published "Cuba, from head to tail", a long report which describes the country as a perfect world of free and happy men.
Q. That was when he finally won over Fidel?
A. Of course; Castro ran to see Gabo at his hotel, and anointed him as his favorite intellectual, as his ambassador to the world. That is where this indestructible friendship was born.
Q. So Fidel Castro gains an invaluable propagandist, but what does Gabo get out of it?
A. An island. He's a hero in Cuba. He has a luxurious mansion in Siboney, free of charge, Beverly Hills-style, and a Mercedes picks him up at the airport, and nobody in Cuba has, like he does, access to the divine Fidel Castro, and he is happy strolling with him in a T-shirt and swim trunks.

Q. And doesn't he feel the slightest moral scruple about benefiting from a one-man dictatorship?
A. Fidel is his friend, period. For Gabo, that's above all else. Gabo deals with his scruples by making individual intercessions to get this or that dissident out of Cuba, and when he does this, he feels so powerful. He enjoys his only drug, power.
Q. Does power attract Gabo?
A. It fascinates him. And power is more powerful the more absolute and arbitrary it is. Observe that it is something that appears in all his books, it's an obsession.
Q. Are you insinuating some sort of psychopathy?
A. Gabo comes from a very poor family, and he himself didn't have a dime and was a nobody until he was forty. Being close to power makes him feel alive, makes him feel like somebody in this world.
Q. So why didn't he dedicate himself to politics instead of writing?
A. He could have been president of Colombia, but he didn't want to: logical, because that is merely a transitory power. It's better to deal with Torrijos, Mitterand, Clinton, Felipe Gonzalez, move in their circles, vampirize their power.
Q. Almost like a moth seeking flame.
A. Yes. And Castro, capable of holding that absolute, lifetime power over a people, is a brilliant, bewitching light. Blinding.

Posted 11:06 by John

In Memoriam

We're running a series of short biographical sketches of the people killed on 3/11 in Madrid. Source: La Vanguardia.

Jose Gallardo Olmo, army corporal, 34, Azuqueca de Henares. Jose was from Sant Feliu de Llobregat, a suburb of Barcelona. He was a professional soldier. He had been in the airborne brigade and had been assigned to the prestigious First King's Immemorial Infantry Brigade for the last four years. (This would be equivalent to having served, say, first in the 101st Airborne and then in the Big Red One.) He was studying for the exams he needed to pass in order to reenlist when his term of duty expired. "He liked the military atmosphere, the Army was his life", said one of his comrades.

Liliana Acero Ushina, maid, 26, Entrevias. She was born in Ecuador, where she worked as a seamstress. She came to Spain a year ago; she lived with her older sister and brother-in-law, her niece, and two more brothers. Lilian and her sister both worked for the same family; they were still illegal aliens but were hoping to get their papers soon. The sister arrived half an hour late to work on the 11th; Lilian was on time. She was on the train that bloew up at Atocha. It took them until the 16th to identify her body.

Oscar Abril Alegre, student, 19, Coslada. Oscar was in his first year at the university; he was with his girlfriend on the train. She is still in very serious condition at the Doce de Octubre hospital. Oscar's sister often traveled with them, all three on their way to class together, but that day she got a ride from another friend. Oscar's family was from the small town of Alfambra, where they are known to the whole village. The entire population of the town, in Teruel province, chartered two buses to get to Oscar's funeral.

Adriyan Asenov, 23, and Kalina Dimitrova, 29, Torrejon de Ardoz. They were Bulgarians who happened to meet at Atocha Station a year ago and were going to get married on May 16. Adriyan was a well-built, good-looking guy, and Kalina had a cheerful, smiling face. They lived together, with Adriyan's parents and cousins. Kalina was a widow; her husband and a brother were killed in an accident in Bulgaria three years ago. Their train blew up at El Pozo. It took them three days to identify them.

Sandra Iglesias, secretary, 28, Torrejon de Ardoz. Sandra had lost an older sister in a traffic accident. She and her boyfriend were about to buy an apartment and move in together; Sandra was still living with her parents. She was very fond of her two nephews. She had very fair skin and hair and blue eyes.

Michael Michell Rodriguez, construction worker, 27, El Pozo. Michael was Cuban. He'd been on a flight from Havana to Moscow in 2001; when it stopped in Madrid, Michael walked off and requested political asylum in Spain. His mother and sister managed to get to Canada somehow; his father stayed in Cuba. Michael was working construction in the mornings, and in a Cuban bar in the evenings. He loved Cuban and salsa music, and his friends remember him as very Cuban in his relaxed approach to life.

Javier Rodriguez Sanchez, 54, and Jorge Rodriguez Casanova, 22, Alcala de Henares. Javier was Jorge's father. They traveled into Madrid together, Jorge for classes and Javier for work. Jorge was studying electronics, and Javier worked for the Spanish Savings Bank Association. Javier was a well-known union activist. They both enjoyed traveling and participatory sports like cycling, rock-climbing, and hiking. Javier was married twice, with three children with his first wife and a four-year-old son with his current wife. Jorge was a tremendous fan of Real Madrid and his favorite player was Zinedane Zidane; he was buried with Zidane's number 5 Real Madrid jersey.

Juan Carlos del Amo Aguado, chemist, 28, Coslada. Juan Carlos had just received his doctorate cum laude in organic chemistry from the Complutense a year ago; he was an intern at a major corporation and had written a scientific article which was to be published in a journal. His dream was to work in the field of applied chemistry in industry. He lived with his parents and younger sister, to whom he was very close.

Posted 10:18 by John

Here's the news from Spain. We don't really have much that the American media doesn't have; here's Fox News's report.

A total of 14 suspects have now been arrested in connection with the Madrid bombings. Four more North Africans were arrested yesterday in the Madrid area, three in the run-down Lavapies district where already-jailed Jamal Zougam had his phone shop and one in the working-class suburb of Getafe. They will be arraigned over the next couple of days. One of these four new arrestees is a habitual criminal with more than 90 arrests on his record.

The five men in the second group of arrestees were brought before Judge Juan del Olmo yesterday. Four of them, Spaniard Jose Emilio Sanchez Trashorras and Moroccans Abderrahim Zbach, Abdelouhard Berrak, and Mohamed El Hadi Chedadi, were sent directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, see you in four years. They have been charged with, among other things, 190 murders. The fifth, Farid Oulad Ali, was released for lack of evidence.

Sanchez is a scumbag small-time crook; he used to brag about how he could steal dynamite from the mine he used to work at. When he was in jail (for drugs, weapons, and dynamite trafficking) he met some of these Friends of Ben Laden. They said they'd pay him well for some dynamite, 100 kilos of which he stole along with the copper detonators that were used. Zbach is believed to be one of the actual bombers; he left the courtroom crying.

Meanwhile, Le Figaro is reporting that the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi procured $70,000 from Ben Laden himself to fund the Islamic Combatant Group, the Morocco-based terrorist gang responsible for the Casablanca attacks that killed 45 and for the 3/11 bombings in Madrid. Jamal Zougam was apparently the contact in this operation.

Security vigilance is way up in Madrid, with all the National Police mobile units being called in except those at the French border and in the Seville-Cadiz area, where there's a strike that might turn violent (nothing to do with 3/11). There is especially tough security at Barajas Airport and at Atocha Station.

They're also preparing for the royal wedding in Madrid on May 22; the cops have been checking out every single building on the parade route. The couple (Prince Felipe and Letizia Ortiz) will ride in a covered, armored limousine rather than the horse-drawn carriages used at the Prince's sisters' weddings. A big show with pomp and circumstance and pageantry and fireworks and the like had been planned, but it has been called off at the express request of the royal couple.

Outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was on Tele 5 last night and he said, regarding Zap's proposal to pull Spain out of Iraq and the Coalition, "This is a very serious error...Making concessions to terror is not the way to defeat terror...Sending messages that terrorism can be confronted with concessions seems wrong to me, and it seems to me that weakening the international coalition that is fighting terror is a serious error, and the message that the terrorists get will be a message that benefits no one...We form part of a world threatened by Islamic fundamentalism...When threatened, you don't throw in the towel, you grit your teeth and hang on."

This is the man whose party was voted out of office. His words don't match Churchill's, but the spirit is the same. Churchill didn't get voted out of office until the war had been won, though. I'm afraid the People's Party has been voted out at the very beginning of the war.

Posted 15:31 by John

Don't miss this longish Andrew Sullivan piece originally from the Sunday Times on Spain's surrender to terrorism.

Posted 11:15 by John

Tim Blair has invited Franco Aleman and Golan from HispaLibertas to post in English on his site, so go check it out already. They link to this article from the Wall Street Journal by Andre Glucksmann which you also need to read. No Pasaran, whose title I feared until I saw their logo of Che with Mickey Mouse ears, has a translation of an interview with Glucksmann and other good stuff.

Here's an excellent article by Pablo Pardo, the US correspondent for El Mundo, trying to explain Spain's recent vote to Americans. It's really a very good piece. I disagree with Pardo on one point. He is right when he says that Spain does not understand the process of growing international interdependence that is called "globalization"; Spaniards often think they can pick and choose, selecting the aspects of globalization that they like and rejecting those they don't. So, for example, many Spaniards see no contradiction between enjoying the modern conveniences and pleasures of life (and Spaniards are good at enjoying things) that globalization brings them and the politically correct peacenik Third Worldist slogans they like to shout.

What happened between March 11 and March 14 was a master job of manipulation of the Spanish people, pulled off by both moderate and extremist segments of the Left, in which it was made clear to everybody that globalization has its risks. The majority of the Spanish people decided, foolishly and cravenly in my opinion, that these risks were unacceptable. Pardo tries to deodorize this dead herring but he just can't, it stinks so high. The Spaniards voted to bail on the Coalition and there's just no hiding it.

Now, there are several possible answers to the question of why the Spaniards are susceptible to fears of the risks of globalization. One is they historically haven't been very globalized, as Pardo points out. They're not used to having to deal with the complexities of international interconnectedness, and they often think that some combination of pacifism, solidarity with the poor, and a great faith in the virtues of dialogue is enough to get by in this world.

Two reasons for this might be that a nasty civil war was fought within living memory, and that the post-Franco democracy was born out of agreement and cooperation between almost all political forces, including ex-Franquistas, moderate democrats, and leftist parties, united in their determination not to have a second civil war. (The Basque Nationalists were just about the only people who didn't agree.) Those are two lessons right here at home about the evils of violence and the virtues of dialogue.

A third one is that the post-WW II development of the European Union may have had its many faults, but it has kept those damn Europeans from killing each other by the millions again and dragging us into it, so that's seen as another triumph of sweet reason and dialogue. (The other lesson that the Spaniards haven't learned is that peace, solidarity, and the like are only feasible when they are protected by large missiles and people willing to use them if necessary.) The trouble with the lessons they have learned is they only work when you're dealing with people who have learned to play by the same rules you have. You can't just decide you're going to opt out of international conflict if the other guy doesn't give you a chance to opt.

Posted 06:56 by John

OK, get this one. TV 3, Catalan government television, and La Vanguardia have been doing everything they can to stir up feeling against Aznar, Rajoy, the PP, and the Americans. I think that the year and a half of posts I've put up translating their ravings to English are proof of that.

So here's TV 3's report this morning on the investigation into the Madrid bombings, which is being carried on by the same police and intelligence services that were at work before the March 14 election, supervised by the same PP politicians who were at work before the March 14 election.

Now, you'll remember that the story being put about by most editorialists in Spain is that the people voted for the Socialists because the PP were concealing information and lying. Virtually no one except for conservative elements of the Spanish media has even mentioned the fact that the terrorists won the election and that this was a vote of cowardice by everyone who didn't support the PP. (Or, I will admit, most CiU voters, or Socialists in the Basque Country.) Some of them were already cowards before the bombing and the rest of them switched over afterwards. It's like they're hoping the fact will just disappear if they don't even mention it. You'll remember that the day after the election I posted three quotations from the Vanguardia showing that their authors, including the well-known Fernando Onega, believed that the election result was a win for the terrorists. They haven't printed word one by any of these three guys on that subject since.

This is TV 3's report on that story--the third most important of the day for them--, eleven days after the bombing and seven days after the election. It begins wth the sentences, "The investigation into the 3-11 bombings continues. Day after day new details about the two attacks are becoming known."

Now, wait a minute. I thought you all agreed the PP government was a lying sack of incompetents. So how come we believe and even praise them now? And I thought you were all hysterical about knowing "the truth". Well, here it is, and you make it the third most important story eleven days later.

Here's what they've learned so far: The investigation is concentrating right now on looking for the safe house the terrorists must have used. It is believed to be in Alcala, where the stolen van was found and the bombs were placed on the trains. The terrorists are part of an organization called the Islamic Combat Group that is based in Morocco. Ten people have been arrested, seven Moroccans, two Indians, and one Spaniard. The Indians have been arraigned and charged with collaborating with a terrorist group; they are very small fry. Three Moroccans have also been arraigned and charged with 190 murders among other things. The other five arrestees, four Moroccans and the Spaniard, are to be brought before a judge this week. All are in jail without bail. In addition, the police are searching for several more suspects, at least some of whom they have identified.

According to La Vanguardia, the Spaniard's name is Jose Emilio Sanchez, an ex-miner. He has previous arrests on drugs and weapons charges and for, guess what, dynamite trafficking. It looks like he's the small-time scumball they got the dynamite from.

Jamal Zougam, one of the three Moroccans arrested immediately after the attacks, who seems to be the main conspirator as far as we know, has all sorts of nice friends. The police have had an eye on him for some time as being connected with radical Islamist groups and Al Qaeda, but they never got anything on him; he had a clean record. Zougam has connections to the 9-11 bombings, to planned terrorist attacks by Afghani mujihadin in Europe, and to what TV 3 outrageously calls "the struggle of the Sunnis against the Kurds in Iraq". I think that last phrase is a euphemism for "Saddam's brutal crushing of the Kurds".

Jesus Christ. According to La Vanguardia and TV 3, this one loser guy running a small mobile-phone shop that specialized in petty fraud has connections to Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, and Saddam all by himself. And then these same news outlets go around saying that Bush and Aznar lied when they connected the dots between those three outfits.

So let's see. Tremendous progress has been made in arresting the guilty people. They know which particular gang did it and they're on the trail of more of them. They know all about that gang's external connections. They know where the dynamite came from. It seems to me that this is a resounding police success and that no one in an official position has lied about or misrepresented anything. They got it wrong at first, as is logical--gee, somebody terrorbombs Madrid and it's pretty easy to jump to the conclusion that it was ETA, since they're rather in the habit of doing exactly that--but they were already giving out information that pointed to an Islamic group the very day of the bombings.

I think TV 3 and La Vanguardia owe Aznar, Rajoy, Bush, and Tony Blair an apology.

Posted 13:36 by John

In Memoriam

We're reproducing the short biographies La Vanguardia is running of the people killed in the March 11 bombings in Madrid.

Danuta Tersa Szpila, seamstress, 28, Alcala de Henares. Danuta worked as an nanny; she had been living in Spain for five years and had a Polish boyfriend whom she was going to marry back in Poland this summer. She had two sisters and a brother; the brother had also immigrated to Madrid. She had many friends in the Polish community and was also close to the family she worked for, whom she had been with for four years. Danuta was a pretty young woman, the sort you might not pick out of a crowd, but with a natural sort of beauty. She was tall and slim with long dark hair.

Iris Toribio Pascual, sales representative, 20, Vallecas. Iris was an only son. He (he was a man despite the name) worked for a mobile phone company; he was popular with the girls. Iris was an amateur disc jockey and was a techno music fan. He was well known among his many friends for throwing parties at which he would DJ. He was an excellent amateur soccer player with a strong left leg and was a big fan of the Rayo Vallecano team, with whom he had played in the youth section. He leaves his girlfriend, his parents, and his grandparents.

Rodrigo Cabrero Perez, student, 20, Getafe. Rodrigo was a second-year student in computer science at the Pontificia. He was very into role-playing games, and many of his friends were fellow role-players, among them his girlfirend, his younger brother, and even his parents. They formed a close group around him. He was standing on the platform when the train blew up at Atocha; the shock wave broke his neck. His was one of the few bodies recovered intact.

Javier Guerrero, computer operator, 25, Puerta de Arganda. Javier was a very handsome young man who looked a little like Antonio Banderas. He was in his fourth year of computer science at the Polytechnic and also worked part-time with computers. He leaves his family and a group of long-time friends. His body wasn't identified for a week; they identified him using a DNA comparison.

Antonio Sabalete Sanchez, civil servant, 36, Vallecas. Antonio was a civil employee of the Navy. He was married with a seven-year-old son; he had a degree in business. His friends recall that he and his wife were particularly affectionate people. Antonio had had a kidney transplant several years ago, so his friends say he was particularly enthusiastic about life. He was interested in computers and enjoyed working out. He and his wife had bought a new apartment and were waiting to move into it.

Francisco Javier Barahona, computer worker, 34, Santa Eugenia. Francisco Javier, his mother, and his sister formed a close family. He was his nephews' "Uncle Paco". He worked for Toyota, where he was well-known and popular; his family has received dozens of telegrams of condolence from people he worked with. He'd broken up with his girlfriend recently but was hoping to get back together with her. He enjoyed reading and yoga.

Nuria Aparicio Somolinos, lawyer, 40, Azuquena de la Sierra. Nuria was married with two sons of five and eight years. She worked for Schweppes in Human Resources, where her work made her known among her co-workers. She belonged to a social club, of which she was a lively member. She and her family used to spend weekends in the small town of La Bodera where she was born.

Francisco A. Quesada Bueno, office manager, 44, Rivas-Vaciamadrid. Francisco had an 11-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son. He worked for the Overseas Credit Institute, where he was in charge of distribution of official publications. He enjoyed sports; he played soccer and belonged to a cycling club.

Posted 16:21 by John

Here's an excellent piece on the last eight days in Spain by Walid Phares in Front Page. I highly recommend it. Check out this article from National Review by Robert Alt, who is writing from Baghdad, on the situation a year after the war began. Here's another one by Paul Marshall of Freedom House, again at NR, explaining the accomplishments of the Coalition in Iraq.

Posted 15:10 by John

In Memoriam

The 202nd victim of the Madrid bombings died yesterday afternoon. 45 of them were foreign. 168 injured people are still in the hospital, eight days after the bombings, with four in critical condition and 20 in very serious condition.

We've been posting short biographical sketches of the people who died. Our source is La Vanguardia.

Jose Garcia Sanchez, bank employee, 45, Vallecas. Jose was a handsome man, tall and youthful looking though a little balding at the corners. He was the assistant director at a Bankinter branch. He had two sons and was married. Jose was going to present his model for office management to the yearly meeting of his bank this week; he was nervous because he would have to speak in public before all the big bosses. He and his sons were Real Madrid fans and were interested in karate. They were going to New York for Easter vacation this year.

Jose Luis Tenesaca Betancourt, student, 17, Madrid. Jose Luis's father immigrated from Ecuador six years ago, and three years ago he brought over his wife and Jose Luis. Jose Luis's father is a heavy machinery mechanic; his son was studying to be an actor.

Nuria del Rio Menendez, 39, and Marta del Rio Menendez, 40, office workers, Santa Eugenia. Nuria leaves her husband and a five-year-old son; Marta leaves her husband and her sons of 11 and 7 years. They were a close family; they spent every summer vacation together with their cousins in Asturias, on the north coast.

Laura Isabel Laforga Bajon, teacher, 28, San Fernando de Henares. Laura lived with two friends in San Fernando, though she was thinking of moving in with her boyfriend in central Madrid so as not to have to get up early and catch the train anymore. She was a dedicated teacher; she taught Spanish to Romanian and Chinese children in a Vallecas public school.

Ney Fernando Torres Mendoza, construction worker, 38, Vallecas. Ney was from Ecuador; he was on the train that exploded at El Pozo with his wife, on the way to work. Ney's wife, Lourdes Beltran, was seriously injured. Ney worked construction and his wife was a maid. They had come here eight years ago and have a year-and-a-half old daughter. Ney sent some money every month to his mother, brother, and five sisters back home. Ney had a lot of friends in the Ecuadorian community; his friends had come to his apartment to watch the Real Madrid-Bayern Munich soccer game the night before the bombings. It took them twenty-four hours to identify him.

Posted 14:15 by John

Here's the latest from Spain. The five people, three Moroccans and two citizens of India, who were arrested on Saturday have been placed in preventive and "incomunicado" custody in Madrid by Judge Juan del Olmo of the Audiencia Nacional. Under Spanish law, they can now be held for two years without an indictment, which can be extended to two more years. Spain doesn't need a Guantanamo; they can lock these guys up for four years without even having to indict them, much less try them.

One of the guys Spain already has locked up is Abu Dahdah, nom de guerre of Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas. Abu Dahdah admits his connections with Jamal Zougam, one of the three Moroccans arrested Saturday and the only one who seems to have been a major conspirator. The other two Moroccans are named Mohamed Chaoui and Mohamed Bakali. The Indians are Suresh Kumar and Vinay Kohly.

Five more arrests were made last night, four Moroccans in Madrid, at least one of whom is believed to be one of the actual bombers, and a Spaniard in Aviles, near Gijon. The Spaniard is suspected of stealing the dynamite used in the bombings. Another hypothesis is that the terrorists had established a front company in some legitimate business like quarrying, mining, or road construction and used it to buy the dynamite, which was made in Spain by the Rio Tinto factory. This would involve serious infrastructure and implies that this particular gang of terrorists, most of whom seem to be Moroccans, has international connections, most likely with Al Qaeda.

(Note on my being wrong; I've been getting some grief on the Comments section for being wrong about ETA authorship of these bombings. Hey, this is the third time I've admitted I was wrong, and you'll note I presented all the arguments against my own case. I was also wrong about the election; I thought the leftist parties wouldn't be nearly as successful in most of Spain as they would be here in Catalonia. Other things I was wrong about that I admitted at the time: I didn't think Kerry would ever win the Democratic nomination, I thought Howard Dean would do much better then they did, and I thought Edgar Davids was all washed up as a soccer player. I even let Murph go back through my archives and grade my predictions for the year 2003 just a couple of weeks ago. So don't lump me in with Beirut Bob Fisk as someone who won't admit he was wrong when he was.)

One argument I've been hearing often recently is that "we're not concentrating on the War on Terror, we're getting distracted in Iraq, and so Bush is to blame for the bombings in Madrid."

Where do we start? Let's see.

A) there's a major roundup of Al Qaeda and allies going on right now in Afghanistan and Pakistan

B) getting rid of Saddam Hussein was getting rid of a tyrant who had money and power and used it to support international terrorism among other horrible things

C) I'm sure the American, British, and Coalition military and security forces are capable of taking on both Al Qaeda and Saddam's dregs at the same time

D) the Iraqi conflict happening now is our guys and the 98% of Iraqis who want to be left alone, against "resistance freedom fighters" who are either Saddamite Baath Party loyalists or international terrorists--some allegedly Basque--lured to Iraq because that's where the action is. Well, the more of them we fight in Iraq, the fewer we'll have to fight in, oh, say, Madrid

E) there has been a continuous stream of Al Qaeda arrests; it's surprising there have been so few attentats outside Israel and Iraq. If the anti-terrorist struggle wasn't working, then there would have been a hell of a lot more attacks in America or London or Paris or Barcelona. Since 9-11, the only really big one in the West has been precisely this one in Madrid

F) if these guys are going to bomb you and kill your people if you don't do what they say, you have two choices, fight them to the death or surrender. There's no opting out. They'll just bomb you again and up their demands, if you meet those demands the first time. Adolf Hitler used this strategy: first I want the Rhineland, then I want Austria, then the Sudetenland, then the rest of Czechoslovakia, then Memel, everyone giving in every time...until Great Britain finally said enough when he got to Poland. Spain seemed to understand this strategy against ETA, but it's obvious most of the Spanish people don't get it regarding Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Al-Aqsa Brigade, and company. You can't say it's not your war because it is, and not recognizing this is, as Cecil Adams would say, craven puppyhood.

Posted 22:22 by John

Libertad Digital, the Spanish conservative news and politics website, has started up their own bitacora, which is Spanish for blog. Check it out if you can read Spanish.

From Front Page, here's Jamie Glasov interviewing Victor Davis Hanson on events in Spain and sundry other topics. Hanson says that recent events in Spain are the greatest chicken-livered surrender to the bad guys since the days of the Roman Empire, and he ought to know, since he's a professor of classics and an celebrated author on military history. Hanson is probably the only well-known American academic who also runs a family farm (which he inherited through several generations gone by).

Here's Ann Coulter, in an unusually good column. She's in an extremely bad mood about recent occurrences in Spain, and she sure has decided to let everyone within range know about it.

James Taranto from the Wall Street Journal links to a Rudyard Kipling poem that is, as Mr. Taranto says, apropos.

Here is Andrew Sullivan shredding an article from the Guardian on the New Republic's website. His last paragraph sums it up pretty well:

In Europe, there are no bad guys, even those who deliberately murdered almost 200 innocents and threaten to murder countless more. Ask yourself: If the Guardian cannot call these people "bad guys," then who qualifies? And if the leaders of democratic societies cannot qualify in this context as "good guys," then who qualifies? What we have here is complete moral nihilism in the face of unspeakable violence. Then we have the absurd canard that there is a "divide between Muslim and Christian communities." There is no such divide. There is a divide within Islam between a large majority and a small minority of theocratic, extremist mass-murderers, men and women who have killed Muslim, Christian, and Jew alike, young and old, and almost always innocent bystanders in free societies. That small minority has terrorized large populations, enslaved women, killed Jews and homosexuals, launched a war against Western civilians, taken over whole countries, and targeted individual writers and thinkers for murder. With them we need a dialogue? With them we need an unremitting, unrelenting, unapologetic war.

Here's Robert Lane Greene from the Economist writing in the New Republic on the same subject. And this is Fred Barnes from the Weekly Standard, writing on the most recent bombing in Baghdad (where he is currently).

Oh, yeah, if you're wondering why we didn't mention this one yet it's because it's bogus. The same bunch of jokers who claimed the blackout last year in the Northeast US and Canada, and the Spain bombings of last Thursday, have stated that they speak in the name of Al Qaeda and that due to Spain's cooperation in the recent elections Al Qaeda has declared a truce with Spain and will commit no more attentats here. The thing about these guys is that nobody knows anything about them and their claims are prima facie not credible. Still, this "story" got some media play this morning, so I thought I ought to mention it. Here's Fox News's story on this subject.

Posted 21:34 by John

I've finally cleaned out my mailbox, so you can e-mail me again should you want to. Sorry; I haven't been real down-to-earth over the last few days, for obvious reasons. My e-mail, in case you don't know, is crankyyanqui at yahoo.com. Please, if all you want to write is a comment on one of my posts, leave it in the Comments section. That way everybody can read it and it won't clog up my box. If you want to get in touch with me personally, though, feel free to write.

In case you didn't already know, I am throwing a party on the evening of April 10, the day before my birthday. I haven't had a birthday party for years. We're hoping for a good turnout of all my friends here and some of you folks from out there in cyberland. The famous Franco Aleman might even be present, and we're hoping for Trevor to show up. All readers who are going to be in Barcelona that day are invited; e-mail me for details. If you need a hotel or a pension, try the Hotel Suizo, the Hotel Rey Jaime I, the Pension Fernando, the Hostal-Jardin Pi, the Park Hotel, or the Hotel de Espana downtown; these are older, not so expensive hotels downtown with some character. In my neighborhood there is the Pension Lesseps, which is quite adequate. There is also the Pension Alberdi, bare-bones but clean and acceptable. They're both cheap. If you insist on a three-star business-style hotel, the Guillem Hotel is within walking distance of my place. And, of course, if you have plenty of dough, book a room at the Ritz. Xavier Cugat lived there in his inimitable style the last ten or so years of his life.

Posted 15:50 by John

Four more arrests have been made in Spain related to the Madrid bombings, three in Alcala and one in Gijon on the north coast. Here is CNN's story; they've got all the information we have from the Spanish media, as far as I can tell. The four arrestees are all of North African origin and are thought to be some sort of direct conspirators in the bombings. Jamal Zougam, who looks like the only real conspirator of the five who had already been arrested, and his four co-bustees, went to their first judicial hearing today.

Zougam has some big-time connections; he has met with Abu Dadah, the boss of Al Qaeda in Spain. These guys are connected to the Courtellier brothers, two French converts to Islam, to Amu Qatada, Al Qaeda's man in London, and to the whole Finsbury Park organization in London.

Here's the BBC's report; they're saying that the Spanish cops are hunting for some 20 Moroccans as possible conspirators and that there have been major roundups in Barcelona and Madrid. The organization responsible is supposed to be the same guys who pulled off the Casablanca bombings; it's a Moroccan extremist organization with at least some ties to Al-Qaeda. It looks like I was all wrong about ETA participation in this hit. They might very well have had nothing to do with it at all.

The dynamite in the bag that didn't explode is being traced; it was produced by the Rio Tinto company here in Spain and was recently made and of good quality.

Meanwhile, the PP has declassified the reports it got from the Spanish secret service, which demonstrate that they were informing the people what they knew, and the preliminary reports they got from the cloak-and-dagger boys all said that it was ETA. So when the government announced it was an ETA job, they were going with the best information they had rather than trying to lie or manipulate anything. In fact, their sin was to go too far, to inform too much too fast without checking to make completely sure it was true.

Posted 15:10 by John

Says Tikrit Tommy Alcoverro in today's Vangua after the terror bombing of a hotel in Baghdad that killed 29:

Next Saturday morning will be the first anniversary of the war in Iraq. The resistance began to remind us of this yesterday with a new massacre in the heart of Baghdad. In the upcoming days and weeks more attentats and massacres are expected, signs of the brutal vulnerability of a country and the failure of an occupation.

Wait a minute. I may be misreading this, but isn't Tikrit Tommy saying that this bombing is somehow the Americans' fault?

Here are a few more sentences from Tikrit Tommy's piece, chosen semi-randomly.

...This capital city, more and more dangerous and sinister...

...the Pandora's Box of this broken and directionless country...

...an underground war that, as happened during the long period of terror in Beirut, is being fed by the intelligence services themselves...without forgetting the great powers...

...There is no doubt the level of violence will increase...

...The worst, in Iraq, is always yet to come...

Now, if your main source of news was La Vanguardia, after reading hysterical defeatism of this sort that TT produces on page 3 and Beirut Bob Fisk on page 6, day in and day out, how might your thinking about international issues be influenced? By the way, I've officially announced my surrender to Beirut Bob. I just cannot stand to try to debate the guy's stuff any more. He's got all the most negative aspects of the British stereotype: he's pissed off about the class system and he hates people he thinks are above him. He doesn't realize he despises those he thinks he himself is superior to--e.g. American soldiers--, but he shows it all the time. He believes himself to be very highly moral and that everyone else is wanting, and he believes mindlessly, foolishly, in the power of the anecdote over the statistic, which I find to be a peculiarly British trait. For Bob, one tragedy like an Iraqi family accidentally getting killed by an American bomb for being at the wrong place at the wrong time is sufficient argument to overcome the general truth that the military intervention has undoubtedly saved thousands of lives more than it has cost.

Oh, yeah, no matter how many times he's been wrong, like the time he claimed that there weren't any American troops in Baghdad airport when the Marines had already taken the place, he'll never admit he was wrong about anything, ever.

Zap's off to a brilliant start internationally. During his campaign he said openly that he hoped Kerry would win and Bush would lose in the American elections, which is not a very good idea if you're going to have to deal with said Bush until January at the very least and probably four more years after that. Luckily, Bush has been a good sport about it, calling Zap to congratulate him. And Kerry just came out and said, in flip-flop #381 of the week, that he doesn't want Spain to pull out its troops. Kerry said that he wanted Zap to "reconsider his position on Iraq. The events in Spain cannot be a reason to pull out. Together, all of us have an interest in the developments in Iraq. Terrorism cannot win through its acts of terror...In my opinion, the new Prime Minister should not have decided to retire from Iraq. He should have said that this will strengthen our determination to get the job done."

What do you know. First time I'm going on record as agreeing with anything John Kerry says. I just hope he doesn't change his mind before, say, tomorrow.

Posted 13:13 by John

In Memoriam

This is a continuation of the short biographies of the people killed in the Madrid bombings. Source: La Vanguardia.

Ines Novellon, nurse, 30, Alcala de Henares. Ines was an attractive young woman with long hair and dark eyes; she knew how to belly-dance and was the life of the party. She lived with her boyfriend; they had just bought an apartment. She also leaves a sister. Thursday was supposed to be Ines's day off, but she traded shifts as a favor to a co-worker.

Francisco Moreno Aragones, accountant, 56, Coslada. Francisco was victim number 200 to die, after three days in intensive care at the Doce de Octubre hospital. He was married and had two daughters and a son; he also leaves his mother, who lives next door to his family. Francisco was currently unemployed; he was traveling into Madrid Thursday morning to go job-hunting.

Ionut Popa, 23, and Petrica Geneva, 34, construction workers, Coslada. Ionut and Petrica were cousins and worked together; their boss, with whom they sometimes went to bars after work, has nothing but the kindest words for them. They were Romanian; both had Romanian girlfriends and lived among the 7000-strong Romanian community in Coslada, along with Petrica's sister. They had come to Madrid only a year ago. Petrica was known as "Pedro" and spoke perfect Spanish; he was a very valuable worker because he could fix anything, electricity, plumbing, and the like. He was also the best driver so he drove the truck.

Maria Dolores Duran Santiago, office worker, 34, Entrevias. Everyone called her "Lola". She was married and had a seventeen-month-old son. She was an avid traveler and reader. Lola had worked for the same company since 1995, and had risen from telephone receptionist to a top administrative position. Her company has established a scholarship fund in her name.

Maria Victoria Leon Moyano, bank employee, 30, Torrejon de Ardoz. She was going to marry her Argentinian boyfriend in June. Maria Victoria was from Malaga and was typically malaguena, outgoing and friendly, but with a serious side too. She met her boyfriend while they were both studying Economics at the university. Maria Victoria was an internal auditor for BSCH, Spain's largest bank. She didn't usually take the train; she was waiting for the delivery of the new car she had bought.

Juan Pastor Ferez, telephone technician, 51, El Pozo. Juan was a rather typical-looking middle-aged Spanish man, a little bald and a little chubby with a mustache. His family remembers him very fondly; they were all very close. He was married with a son and a nine-month-old granddaughter about whom he was crazy. Juan was the technical chief of Madrid's convention hall--he'd worked there for 21 years--, and he had been working double shifts to prepare the hall for the night of the election results, which are announced there. He had installed 180 telephone lines. Juan was well-known and liked among many people, including journalists. He enjoyed fishing and was interested in archaeology.

Maria Teresa Mora Valero, computer operator, and Jose Ramon Moreno Isarch, civil servant, Alcala de Henares. Jose Ramon worked in the regional Family and Social Services department and Teresa had a degree in history; she had worked for more than ten years at the Air Force logistical command. They had been dating for ten years and were living together in an apartment they had just bought in Alcala; they were going to get married in November. Their friends describe them as "cultured and sensitive". They both enjoyed classical music and old movies.

Rex Ferrer Reinado, student, 20, Torrejon de Ardoz. Rex was from the Philippines; first his father came to Spain, then brought over Rex's mother, and finally Rex and his sister in 1998. His father is a waiter in a well-known Madrid restaurant and his mother works in a food-processing factory. Rex graduated from high school in Torrejon and was studying computer science at the university; he also waited tables in a small restaurant part-time. Rex and his sister were going to return to the Philippines during their summer vacation, for the first time since they had left for Spain. He was on his way to a rehearsal for his church choir when his train blew up at Atocha.

Gloria Ines Bedoya, cook, 40, Torrejon de Ardoz. Gloria and her husband were "illegal aliens" from Colombia. She worked as a short-order cook and he works construction. They had been here in Spain for two years and things were not going particularly well; the husband wanted to go back to Colombia, where their children of 15 and 18 are living. Gloria Ines wanted to stay in Spain; she was cheerful and fun-loving, and enjoyed disco dancing and window-shopping. It took them more than 24 hours to identify her body.

Emilian Popescu, house painter, 44, Coslada. Emilian was Romanian. He and his family, who were very close, had been in Spain for eight years; he was married and had two sons, 19 and 15, both fine students whose education Emilian saved and scrimped for. Emilian's wife worked hard, too, as a cleaning woman. Emilian enjoyed sports, playing more than watching; he was religiously observant. His family remembers him above all as a good man. They were saving up to buy their own house.

There are some doubts about the exact number of victims. Forensic scientists have performed 194 autopsies. There are still thirteen body bags left to identify. Says La Vanguardia, in a triumph of euphemism, "Forensic sources said that for now they cannot assure how many persons the cited biological remains correspond to." Of course, investigation is continuing. It is believed that the remains belong to seven different people, because that is the number of missing persons who have still not turned up. So 194 + 7 = 201, which is where that particular number comes from.

Posted 15:27 by John

I greatly admire the economist Xavier Sala i Martin, who is both a classical liberal and pro-Catalan independence. Mr. Sala i Martin is a well-known economist who spends part of the year at Columbia in New York, part of the year at the Pompeu Fabra University here, and part of the year volunteering his economic expertise to Third World governments. He also occasionally contributes to the Vanguardia, and is by far their best writer. I happen to disagree with him on the question of Catalan independence, and I like the PP rather more than he does, but I agree with him on almost everything else. Here are a couple of paragraphs from his piece in Wednesday's Vangua. He starts his article with a criticism of what he considers the PP's bungling of the release of public information regarding the bombings and also what he considers the PP's unfairness toward regional political parties that are nationalist or separatist but not violent. Then he switches gears.

Of course I am also saddened by those who, from the other side and with the same glibness, call the members of the People's Party murderers and terrorists. Many affirm that the bombings are the Islamic answer to Spain's participation in the Iraq conflict. I do not know whether that is true. What I do know is that Spain was in the sights of Al Qaeda before the beginning of the war. Bin Laden himself pointed at Spain for having expelled the Muslims of Al Andalus--more than five hundred years ago! Besides, if the Al Qaeda bombings are mere answers to participation in the war, somebody please explain to me the attentats against the UN in Baghdad (wasn't that the institution that was opposed to the Great American Satan?) or those in Istanbul (didn't Turkey stop the American army from passing through their territory right before the invasion?). Or, somebody explain to me the 9-11 bombings, a year and a half before the Baghdad conflict began.

Maybe the participation of Spain in the Iraq war has caused other terrorists to put more emphasis on Spain. I'm not saying that's not true. But let nobody be fooled and think that we will be much safer if we retire the troops. And if the new Government of Spain wants to retire them, let it do so because that is the best thing for the country and not because that's what the terrorists demand. Because, whatever they say (and they talk about Iraq, defending the poor and wanting to reduce inequalities among the citizens of the world), the real reason they kill us is because they hate us. They hate us for being "infidels" and they hate all the social advances we have made in the last centuries: liberal democracy, freedom of expression, separation between church and state, equality between men and women, technology, and material well-being. These are achievements that we must not and cannot renounce and which we will not give up under threat of extortion, no matter how bloody it is. The civilized leaders of the world should understand this and stop fighting among themselves and unite against the common threat.

And, finally, I am saddened that on the day of March 11, the fundamentalists succeeded in changing the results of a democratic lection. No. I am not sorry about the defeat of the PP. In fact, I am happy that Aznarism was swallowed up by its own quicksand of arrogance and incompetence, the victim of the hate it had sown during its administration. But I am afraid that, when they see their new capability to change democratic regimes, the terrorists will think that they can influence other countries in the future and they will try to commit terrible chains of attentats every time there is an election in some part of the planet. Call me a catastrophist. But, just in case, on the week of November 2 (the date of the presidential election in the United States), I will not be in New York.

Posted 14:14 by John

The Vangua reports that President Bush's response to the Spanish elections was, "Al Qaeda knows what the stakes are. They want us to leave Iraq because they are trying to use Iraq as an example of how to overthrow freedom and democracy. (Terrorists) will continue trying to murder innocents so that the world will be frightened. They will never break the will of the United States. It is essential that the free world remain strong, resolved, and decided."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "They want us to bug out of there. We should not permit the terrorists to influence an election or influence a policy." Meanwhile, the Pentagon said, basically, too bad if the Spaniards leave Iraq but we can handle it if they do.

The Italians and the Dutch are not going to bail out on the Coalition. The Poles aren't, either, though they feel rather abandoned by Spain. The Polish government is supposedly about to fall, but I'll believe that when it happens. They said that Poland's 2400 troops will remain in Iraq "at least until the end of the year". Polish troops will stay in Iraq until a new Iraqi government has taken over full authority and control of national security.

Prime Minister Leszek Miller, who has a pair of large brass ones, stated that "Pulling out foreign forces now would mean that the terrorists are right and that they are stronger than the whole civilized world".

Poland is also worried that the new Zap government will bow down to the Frogs and Toads in the EU. Now, this is a total MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over), but there are negotiations going on for a new European Union constitution. One of the sticking points is, of course, how much power each state should have in EU decision making. Germany is the largest state with some 80 million people, and then come France, Italy, and Britain with about sixty million each. It is understood that these larger states will have more power than the rest because this is supposed to be at least sort of democratic and they obviously have more people.

Then, of course, the smaller states like Holland and Greece and the Czech Republic will have fewer votes and less power. Of course. The problem is Spain and Poland, each of which have about forty million people and who fall right in the middle. Basically, what Spain and Poland are arguing is that as the middle powers they ought to have a larger share of the EU power pie. Zap, however, is thought to be ready to ditch the Poles and sign on with the Frogs and the Toads, thereby accepting a smaller share of power inside the EU than what Aznar and Polish PM Miller were holding out for.

The "office pools" are going around in political circles here, just as they're going around in offices all over the United States for the NCAA basketball tournament. These are literally office pools, though, since they're betting on which party hack is going to get what Cabinet office in the new Zap government. Leading guesses, according to the Vangua, are Jesus Caldera as vice-Prime Minister, Jose Montilla at Interior (May God nos coja confesados) or Public Administration, rather more up his alley since he's a party bureaucrat, Miguel Sebastian at Economics, Miguel Angel moratinos at Foreign Affairs, Magdalena Alvarez at Hacienda, and Carmen Calvo at Culture. Supposedly Jose Bono has some sort of new Homeland Security Cabinet seat locked up if he wants it. Looks like the Zap-Blanco Madrid party faction, which supposedly has the support of former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, won and they're going to get most of the good jobs, beating out the Bono-Ibarra regional barons faction, the Alfonso Guerra hard-left faction, and the Maragall Catalan faction.

Here's Greenpeace: "(Zap's election) means an approach toward the rest of the European Union nations in order to form a bloc differentiated from the United States and from George Bush's Administration, which is marked by a very aggressive policy". Well, as a general rule, if Greenpeace is for it I'm against it, and this statement doesn't make me change my thinking.

Here's Barry Rubin in the Vanguardia, one of the few non-hysterical articles the Vangua has printed since 3/11.

The goal of the terrorists is to provoke the victims to blame their own governments, Israel, or the United States, and not the terrorists themselves. This strategy often works with some sectors of the media of communication, intellectuals, and public opinion, but it rarely results in political changes.

Other European countries will face the new risks of very localized terrorism. Great Britain and Italy are obvious targets because of the iraq question. Also, France might suffer an attack due to the strengthening of its posture against Islamic terrorism and the prohibition of the veil in schools.

Given the proximity of the American elections, specific terrorist attacks might be planned to defeat President George W. Bush. (The subject is complex, since Bush's opponents might react against any insinuation of that sort by alleging that idea [stand up to the terrorists who are trying to defeat Bush] is a partisan attempt to assure the victory of the president.)

The reaction of the Spanish voters to this attack will be the first test of what looks like Al Qaeda's and its allied groups' new strategy.

Posted 22:45 by John

In Memoriam

We are reproducing the biographies of the victims of the Madrid bombings that La Vanguardia is running, since it's about the only thing we can do for the people who died. We will probably forget them soon, much as we protest now, but there are thousands of people who knew them who never will.

Felix Gonzalez Gago, military officer, 52, Alcala de Henares. Felix was a "subteniente" in the Air Force. He had been on a peacekeeping mission in Namibia and had also been at the Spanish Embassy in Chile during four years. He was married and had two sons of 11 and 9 years.

Marion Cintia Subervielle, receptionist, 30, Alcala de Henares. Marion was from France, from a small town near Pau. She had also lived for a time in the United States and in England. She and her Spanish husband had a ten-month-old daughter. She worked at the National Library, and often attended foreigners because of her perfect French and English as well as Spanish. Marion died at Santa Eugenia.

Maria Luisa Polo Remartinez, library worker, 50, Alcobendas. Maria Luisa worked as an assistant at the National Library. She had worked several different jobs in her life; she was married with a 19-year-old daughter. Maria Luisa had a twin sister. Her family didn't fear for her safety at first because she usually took the bus. Thursday she took the train.

Maria Fernandez del Amo, student, 26, Azuqueca de Henares. Maria was in her last year as a student of industrial engineering at the Polytechnic. She had recently bought an apartment and planned to get married. She sang in a choir and was strongly religious. Maria's friends had to charter a bus to get all of them to her funeral.

Francisco Javier Mancebo, auditor, 38, El Pozo. Francisco was on the train that blew up at El Pozo with his son, who survived but with burns over 12% of his body. Francisco Javier was known for his athletic ability; he still played basketball twice a week despite the fact he had a pacemaker. He was a major fan of the Estudiantes basketball team and of Real Madrid in soccer. Francisco Javier was tall and well-built, as fits a basketball player. He was also a hot amateur guitar player; he once tried out for a place in the well-known pop-rock group Los Enemigos. He had a law degree and worked as an auditor for the courts. He leaves his wife, son, and daughter.

Livia Bogdan, cleaner, 27, Coslada, and Juan Munoz Lara, Coslada. Livia arrived in Spain two years ago from her native Romania along with her twin sister; they were following their father, who had come here several years before. She was a very attractive woman, with long dark hair and a rather exotic appearance. On the evening of Wednesday the 10th, Livia and Juan (her boyfriend of four months) brought home some seafood and wine in order to enjoy a first-class dinner. Juan spent the night and the two caught the 7:10 train together that next morning.

Posted 16:15 by John

El Pais is reporting that six Moroccan citizens have been identified as the bombers on the Madrid trains. Five of them have apparently fled the country; the sixth is Jamal Zougam, the owner of the mobile phone shop to which the mobile phone and fake phonecard in the bag which didn't explode led investigators. Zougam is the only one of the five arrested so far who seems to be big-time guilty. (Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but let's not let legal procedure stand in the way of what probably happened.)

Apparently the four other people arrested are merely associates of Zougam and some sort of small-time phone scammers.

Two survivors of the bombings identified Zougam as someone they had seen on the trains the day of the bombings.

The direct boss of Zougam's cell is an Algerian named Said Arel, who in turn is under a Jordanian named Abou Mosad al-Fakaui. Al-Fakaui is a leader of Ansar el-Islam, the Al-Qaeda group based in Saddam's Iraq. So it is said.

Paranoid conspiracy-theory question: What if the Corriere della Sera's story we mentioned a couple of days ago about Basque terrorists being trained fighting Americans in Iraq is even semi-true? Is that the connection? Did the ETA provide the information and the infrastructure while the Islamists pulled the actual hit?

Posted 14:41 by John

Here's an article by Borja Gracia in Libertad Digital, a conservative Spanish website run by Federico Jimenez Losantos, Spain's most notable (or notorious) media right-winger. I actually think Jimenez Losantos is a bit of a pompous ass on the radio--he's on the COPE, the Catholic radio network, in the morning--, but I like a lot of the stuff that gets on his website. I can't stand the way he talks, though.

"Aznar murderer", "Iraq invaded by murderers and workers die in Madrid", "PP = Terrorism", "Aznar, coward, you're guilty", "You fascists are the terrorists", "Thanks Aznar for the Iraq war, consequence, 200 dead". These and other chants accusing the government of lying and asking for the "truth" could be heard and read at the "peaceful" and "spontaneous" demonstrations in front of various local PP headquarters which occurred on the "day of reflection" and which lead me, without knowing the election results, to these reflections. There are two arguments, one, that the Government is lying when it blames ETA for the bombings with electoral purposes. The other, that the bombings are the consequences of Spanish participation in the war and without that, they could have been avoided.

I will dedicate only one paragraph to the first accusation, since no matter how repeated it is, it doesn't get any less false. It is enough to remember that Interior Minister Acebes was the one who broke the news of a new line of investigation after the discovery of new clues before there was any other communication or leak at all. From there on the possibility of Islamic terrorism began taking shape. It was therefore the Minister himself who announced that possibility on the day of the attentat, and not even sixty hours had passed when the first arrests were made and announced, which did not favor the "manipulative" theses of the government. Those who make accusations of manipulation, many of them who, sinisterly, need for ETA not to be guilty of the bombings, "informed" about the participation in those bombings of, at least, one suicide terrorist. They are the ones who accused the Government of manipulation and of lying for initially centering the investigation on ETA. For these accusers it was not believeable that an attentat in Madrid, essentially identical to one broken up a couple of months ago in Atocha Station, had the same perpetrators as the others committed by those who have been killing for many years, ETA. We will also forget that Ibarretxe [of the PNV] and Carod-Rovira [of ERC] were those who at first believed in the ETA hypothesis most vehemently, and this fact did not make either of them change their political direction. The government did not manipulate us, we all thought initially and logically of ETA. Those who were manipulating at that moment with false news, like the one about the suicide bomber, were those who needed and wanted it not to be ETA.

The second of the accusations is more serious. There is a legitimate debate about the Iraq war, with arguments in favor and against. It is not legitimate to center this debate on false accusations of manipulation, lies, and conspiracy. The permanent delegitimizing of the adversary that some of those who opposed the war in Iraq made is not acceptable (even less so if what they are trying to delegitimize is a Government elected with more than ten million votes.) In England it has been demonstrated by Judge Hutton that the great falsehood was not the arguments used by the British government, but the accusations of lying that were made by several media of communication. The BBC lied in order to be able to accuse the government of lying. This is not part of legitimate debate in democratic countries.

It is part of legitimate debate about the war in Iraq to argue that, above all other reasons, Spain should not have supported the war in order to avoid becoming a target of Islamic terrorism. It does not stop being a legitimate argument because it is cowardly, and miserably cowardly. Some of those who hold this position are those who are now accusing Aznar, and by extension all of those of us who supported the war, of being murderers. When Jaime Mayor and Jose Maria Aznar implemented a policy of democratic intransigence against ETA and its accomplices in all spheres, they were aware that ETA's answer would be, as it always is, murder. Following this frightening reasoning, they are both the murderers of , among others, many local officials of their own party in the Basque Country who died in the ETA offensive [of the late 1990s]. The policemen who liberated Jose Antonio Ortega Lara [an ETA kidnap victim] were murderers too, because that liberation caused an ETA reaction in the shape, again, of the murder of Miguel Angel Blanco. [Blanco was kidnapped and held "for ransom" by ETA; they threatened to kill him if the Aznar government did not change its antiterrorist policy. The Aznar government refused and ETA shot him and dumped his body out of a car.] Those who arrest ETA members during a period of a terrorist "truce" in an obvious provocation are murderers too, and, on the other hand, those who asked for "political quid pro quos" for the terrorists after the arrest of ETA members in France during the next-to-last "truce" are heroes of peace.

If those who make such arguments were coherent, they would have been calling Aznar a murderer for a long time since because of his antiterrorist policies. That is what those who define the Basque problem as a conflict between two parts, both of whom are to blame, which should be solved through dialogue. But when they talk about ETA they cannot be so explicit, because the familiarity of this form of terrorism would reveal their cowardice to us with a bare face. If we have to keep the Islamic terrorists happy so they won't murder us, why should we make ETA terrorists uncomfortable because they kill us too? Coherence should make them explain the implications of their cowardice regarding the anti-terrorist struggle in Spain, referring to ETA. They won't do it, just like they'll never carry a sign saying ETA NO. They are miserable, but above all, very, very cowardly.

Posted 13:45 by John

Sociological Note That May Interest Only Me:

Both the outrageously partial Barcelona sports dailies, El Mundo Deportivo (owned by the same people who own the Vanguardia, the Counts of Godo) and Sport, ran the same headline on their front pages: "A cule in La Moncloa." Now, a cule (kool-AY) is a FC Barcelona supporter and La Moncloa is the Spanish equivalent of the White House. In case you were wondering, "cul" is Catalan for "ass", and the legend is that back in the early days of the Barca, 1915 or 1920 or so, the team's fans sat on a brick wall along one side of the soccer field. Their culs were hanging over the sidewalk side of the wall, and that's what their nickname became.

Seems Zap is a Barca fan. Yippee-skippee.

Aznar, of course, is a merengue, a Real Madrid supporter. Felipe Gonzalez is a fan of Betis, the traditional Seville working-class team. (Interestingly, Betis and Sevilla, the traditional Seville rich snobby team, have traded places. Sevilla's fans are now the most violent radical leftist group of any team in the league, and the youngest.) Rumor has it that the King is a colchonero, a supporter of Atletico de Madrid. My impression is that it would be impolitic of him to announce this publicly. Espanyol's fans--Espanyol is Barcelona's other team, with a following that includes residents of the Sarria neighborhood, migrants to Barcelona from northern Spain, and some evil scum skinheads called the Brigadas Blanquiazules--are called pericos or periquitos, apparently because a popular sort of pet parakeets are blue and white, the colors of the Espanyol. They had a really cool TV ad a few years ago that showed some of these cute little blue and white birds playing soccer, computer-graphics-assisted, of course. Anyway, I thought it was cool.

In case you were wondering, these sports dailies run about 100,000 copies or so. Each. In addition, some people here and a lot of people elsewhere buy one of the Madrid sports dailies, As or Marca. Marca sells big all over Spain and is generally considered the most neutral and most national of the various sports papers, the one that pays most attention to the smaller clubs.

The interesting thing is that FC Barcelona (along with Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, and Osasuna of Pamplona) is still a real club, run by an elected board of directors. Every dues-paying member of the club, who gets a season ticket, gets a vote for the board, and they have elections every so often. There are something like 100,000 club members, and that makes a strong lobby. FC Barcelona is a force in Catalonia, more socially than politically, of course. And it even has a good bit of economic importance.

Over the last twenty or so years, first Jose Luis Nunez--until about 2001, I think--and then Joan Gaspart for a disastrous couple of years in which he signed Petit, Overmars, Rochemback, Geovanni, and that lot, for like twenty million dollars each, ran the Barca as president of the board. They were both noted PP supporters, and Enrique Lacalle, once mayoral candidate for the PP, was important in the club. Gaspart had to resign last year, though, because the team stank and was getting worse by the day, and everybody hates him and thinks he's a prick anyway--he was often caricaturized as Mr. Burns from the Simpsons--and was replaced, in new elections, by Joan Laporta, who has Catalan nationalist ties and who is linked to both Convergence and Union and the Republican Left.

Good God. Zap. Montilla. Maragall. Clos. Carod-Rovira. Laporta. There's a bunch of rabid cules running this country now. If they run Spain the way the Barca has generally been run, start praying right now.

Cules like to say "El Barca es mes que un club"--"The Barca is more than just a club". Merengues and pericos respond, "Es mes que un club, es un puticlub"--"It's more than just a club, it's a nightclub of ill repute."

Posted 11:52 by John

The Spanish media is speculating that Spain may be only the first European country to bail out of the Coalition. Holland, Denmark, and Portugal are signaled as most likely to chicken out too. I doubt any of those countries will follow Spain's lead.

Tikrit Tommy Alcoverro, in La Vangua, claims to have talked to the Spanish diplomatic corps and reports that "there is a feeling of relief and satisfaction among many diplomats. Many believe that Spain must act quickly so that the Iraqis never feel again that we are the occupiers of their land. Spain was already in the crosshairs of the Islamic fundamentalists before the defiant military mission in Iraq."

So if I get this right, the Spanish diplomatic corps and Tikrit Tommy believe that Spain's position even before Spain's joining the Coalition in Iraq was too extreme, and Spain's Coalition membership was "defiant"; I assume they would have preferred a more anti-American and anti-Israeli posture. I'm for defiance, myself. Against the ETA and against Islamic terrorists and against every other kind of murderous thug. As Tony Blair said, we can't solve all the problems of the world, but we should at least try to fix those we can. Right now ETA and Islamic terrorism are among those we can fix.

Or of course, we could just surrender.

We don't have to worry about an immediate Spanish pullout from Iraq. Jose Maria Aznar will remain as Prime Minister for approximately the next month and a half, until the end of April or so, while the new Parliament is being constituted. Within that time Colin Powell and Jack Straw (I wouldn't send Rummy on this particular mission) will have time to fill Zap full of some facts and twist his arm a bit. Zap promised he wouldn't bail out if the Coalition forces were put under UN control before June 30. I imagine that some genius may figure out how to do this so Zap can feel comfortable, with his conscience clear, and the Yanks and the Brits can keep running things militarily.

This is, of course, a highly optimistic analysis.

Note, by the way, that the fervor of "Tell us the truth" and "We want all the information" and "The Government's covering up" and "Aznar lied" is all gone today. There are no "spontaneous" demonstrations in the streets and no hysterical leftist politicians on TV screaming denunciations of the Government. They seem content for the investigation to continue normally now. That's because the election is over and the demonstrators and politicians got what they wanted: a PP defeat. That's the last you'll hear about their concern for the victims and their demands for justice.

Zap is going to govern from the minority: that means his cabinet will be made up only of Socialists and he will make temporary alliances with other parties in Parliament in order to get legislation passed. That means smaller parties will be able to hold him up to swap favors to their special interests for the votes he needs to get major things, like say the budget, through. This will be a weak central government, which may not be all that bad a thing. Zap won't have enough power to, say, renationalize the phone company or anything goofy like that.

To put a good face on it, maybe Convergence and Union will have enough weight with its 10 seats in order to significantly moderate Socialist policy on every issue but moderate Catalooniness.

According to Jordi Barbeta in the Vanguardia, the Europeans are just thrilled, at least the Frogs and the Toads. They see the Spanish vote as a rejection of Spain's alliance with America and a signal of its desire for a closer relationship with the Continental powers, which is exactly what it was. If Zap actually lines up Spain behind the Germans and French on EU and international issues, as shows every sign of doing, we'll have to find another amphibian for the Spaniards' nickname: I propose the Newts. Sounds like "neutral". Or "neutered".

Here's Eusebio Val in the Vangua:

In the US the defeat of the PP is interpreted as the electorate's punishment for a government too closely aligned with the Bush administration and as a protest for its support of the war in Iraq.

Spanish internal politics are too complex and unknown to them in order to take into account other reasons that may explain what happened. Therefore, the analysis of the result has been made from the point of view of its international repercussions and security policy.

Mr. Val, may I be blunt? My ass. Your own newspaper, on page 21, publishes the results of the major newspapers' electoral surveys taken the weekend before the bombings and made public on Sunday, March 7, four days before the bombing. Those results were, giving the best possible vote for the PSOE and the worst possible vote for the PP out of the 350 seats in Spain's Congress of Deputies:

La Vanguardia: PP 162, PSOE 147.
El Pais: PP 168, PSOE 141.
El Periodico: PP 169, PSOE 140.
La Razon: PP 171, PSOE 141.

These were the worst-case scenario results for the PP and the best-case scenario results for the Socialists. The question that all you newspaper geniuses were debating was how much the PP was going to win by and if there would be another absolute majority of 176 PP seats or not. All the leftists in El Pais were getting ready to crow victory should the PP score 175 seats or less and lose its absolute majority.

Actual results: PSOE 164, PP 148.

Now, you tell me what happened between Sunday, March 7, and Election Day, Sunday March 14, that might have affected those results.

On page 14, the Vanguardia points out four domestic issues that will be affected by the victory of the Socialists: the water plan that would have sent Ebro River water south is dead; the teachers' unions will take over the educational system again, throw out the PP's LOCE (Law for Quality of Education), and bring back the old, failed Reforma system; more money will be spent on health care, as much as an extra percent of GDP, and research on embryonic cells will be permitted; and, wishful thinking, more pork-barrel cash will flow to Catalonia.

It does not seem to me that any of those issues decided more than about seventeen votes.

Posted 22:51 by John

Here's a piece from the New Republic that is entirely over-optimistic. The author seems to think that Zap can be persuaded to go back on his promise to pull troops out of Iraq. Absolutely not. Zap is a weak leader: his victory shocked everybody, including himself. He does not have the Socialist Party united behind him; he's a member of the Madrid party apparatus faction and he beat out Jose Bono, the leader of the "regional barons" faction, by one vote in the most recent contest for prime ministerial nominee. Another group he'll have to appease is the hard-left Alfonso Guerra faction, not to mention the Catalan faction. He is not going to take any chances on offending anybody, so he is going to complete his promise on troop withdrawal to the letter. That's what he got elected on, and that's what he's going to have to do. This is THE issue and Zap can't go back on that. If he does he'll betray his voters and weaken his position both as party leader and prime minister.

Posted 22:44 by John

Christopher Hitchens agrees with me. One comment: Hitch makes the common error of assigning too much credit to King Juanca for Spain's transition to democracy.

Posted 20:52 by John

In Memoriam

As you most likely know, the Vanguardia has been running short biographies of the victims of the Madrid bombings. About all we can do in their memory is get the information down in English in order to remember the 200 dead people.

Nicoleta Diac, house cleaner, 27, Coslada. Nicoleta was from a farm family in Romania and had been in Spain for four and a half years; she lived with a Romanian couple in Coslada. She was very pretty, with short fair hair. Nicoleta was religious, a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist church. She was very close to the family she worked for and was excited because on March 11 the wife was going to give birth (which she did on schedule). They still haven't told the wife that Nicoleta is dead.

Juan Sanchez Quispe, window cleaner, 45, Vallecas. Juan was from Peru and came to Spain seven years ago. He had been a soccer referee there and was a major fan of the sport; he was a FC Barcelona supporter. Juan was married and had two sons, 14 and 16 years old; he also leaves his brother. The family bought their own apartment four years ago; Juan worked a variety of jobs to bring in some money. He was going to become a citizen of Spain.

Mohammed Itaiben, teacher, 27, Azuqueca de Henares. Mohammed was from Alhucemas in northern Morocco; he was one of five brothers from a farming family. He studed languages and literature at Fez University and worked as a teacher of Arabic and French. He was a handsome young man with large, clear eyes, and the Moroccan community was very proud of him as someone who had "made it".

Sanea Bensaleh, student, 13, Alcala de Henares. Sanea was born in Madrid, the daughter of Moroccan immigrants. Sanea, of course, was perfectly integrated into the community; her parents were careful that she should speak both Spanish and Arabic. She was a high school student and an only child, and was popular among her classmates.

Miriam Pedraza Rivero, office worker, 25, Entrevias. Miriam had been married for three years; she and her husband were saving for an apartment. They had planned to go on a trip to London the weekend after the bombings. She enjoyed sports and fitness and did aerobics and yoga; she was looking forward to attending the upcoming Formula One race. Her family and friends say she was cheerful and lively and very mature for her age.

Guillermo Senent Pallarola, technician, 23, Cabanillas. Guillermo and his friend David Santamaria were going to take their physical exams; they had been working as intern technicians on the high-speed train. Both were killed in the blasts. He leaves his parents and a brother.

Eduardo Sanz Perez, maintenance man, 31, Azuqueca de Henares. Eduardo was married and had a son of two years; his wife is currently eight months pregnant. He worked for the Army as a civilian employee.

Javier Menjibar Jimenez, teacher, 43, Alcala de Henares. Javier was from Lima, Peru, and came to Spain as a child. He was married and had two young daughters. Javier had worked as a high-school teacher, but was currently employed in the foreign-aid department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had lived in California for a time as a visiting teacher. He loved cats and was an avid cyclist.

Sergio de las Heras Correa, aeronautical engineer, 28, Alcala de Henares. Sergio normally drove to work, but his car was in the shop so he took the train on Thursday. He had a girlfriend and is remembered by his friends as very generous and a card-playing shark.

Domino Simon Gonzalez, insurance worker, and Maria Cristina Lopez Ramos, secretary, Santa Eugenia. Domi, as everyone called him, and Cristina were married and had two children, ages 11 and 3. They dropped their kids off at school and went off to work by train on Thursday morning. Family members are going to take charge of the children.

Posted 15:51 by John

Well, I hate to write this but it's about time I did it. The Vanguardia's headline says it all: "Historic reversal". The Socialists won 164 seats, up 39 from the 2000 elections, and the PP won 148 seats, down 35 from the last elections. A Parliamentary majority is 176 seats. Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will be the next Prime Minister of Spain.

Here's the rundown of who won what. "Centralist" means that the party is generally against more powers for autonomous governments and sees Spain fundamentally as one nation. "Nationalist" means that the party favors more powers for autonomous regions, if not outright independence for its particular region, and sees Spain fundamentally as several nations or as something that simply should not exist.

PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party): 164 seats. The PSOE is a rather leftist and generally centralist social democratic party. It is strongly anti-American and pacifist, and is not too far distant ideologically from a standard Continental European socialist party.

PP (People's Party): 148 seats. The PP is socially conservative and rather paternalistic; it wouldn't like to dismantle the welfare state, for example, though it might like to trim it back. It's the closest thing there is to a free-market party in Spain. Considered pro-business and pro-American. It is considered the most centralist party. It had governed Spain for the last 8 years.

CiU (Convergence and Union): 10 seats. Moderate Catalan nationalists, if a bit Cataloony at times. A rather paternalistic party, it represents the Catalan petty bourgeoisie. Socially conservative; more Christian Democratic than the PP. Not separatist.

ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia): 8 seats. Radical Catalan nationalists; pro-independence but officially anti-violence. Otherwise generally supports what's policically correct at the moment; has no real ideology outside Catalan nationalism.

PNV (Basque Nationalist Party): 7 seats. Supposedly moderate Basque nationalists, though too friendly with extremists for the taste of many. Basically a Basque nationalist Christian Democratic party. Officially anti-violence; does not openly call for separation from Spain.

IU (United Left): 5 seats. The Spanish Communists. Drew two seats in Barcelona, two in Madrid, one in Valencia, and nothing anywhere else. A fairly standard European Communist party. Virulently anti-American, of course.

CC (Canary Coalition): 3 seats. A rather conservative party that tries to be the voice for the islands, which sometimes feel a little neglected. Not separatist. Has supported the PP in the past.

BNG (Galician National Bloc): 2 seats. Leftist Galician nationalists.

ChA (Aragonese Committees): 1 seat. Somewhat wacky leftist regionalists. Not separatists.

EA (Eusko Alkartasuna): 1 seat. Fairly moderate Basque separatists. Officially non-violent.

NB (Nafarroa Bai): 1 seat. A coalition of Basque nationalist and leftist minor parties in Navarra. First representation in Parliament.

Just about the only good news here for the future of Spain is that the Socialists will have to make a coalition in order to run the country. They need twelve votes for the parliamentary majority of 176; they could get that from CiU's 10 and CC's 3 to make 177. If that happens, then the worst lefty excesses of Zap and the PSOE will be somewhat under control.

There is no news about the bombings in Madrid. The police are still investigating all leads. Perhaps the worst possible nightmare would be if this were an Al Qaeda-ETA combined hit. I still think there's no conclusive evidence pointing to Islamic terrorists, but I have to admit the evidence pointing to ETA is not conclusive, either.

I meant what I said about appeasement and cowardice and I have no plans to take it back. 37.6% of Spaniards, those who voted for the PP, agree with me.

I also don't need any lessons on democracy. Of course we accept that the winners won and we leave them to get on with running the country. That's what democracy is. The people speak. I have no obligation to agree with them, but I do have the obligation to accept them as the legitimate next government of Spain.

But I don't have to like it. And the fact that the democratic process went on as scheduled does not mean that democracy "won". The terrorists won. The people (except for that courageous 37.6 percent) decided they agreed with the terrorists. They voted for the parties that promised "dialogue" with ETA and a pullout from the Coalition. Those are the two things that the domestic and international terrorists wanted.

Here are three fragments from articles appearing in the Vanguardia today. The first is by Fernando Onega.

Rajoy's victory was taken so much for granted that it seems incredible that he lost. What happened? The analysis trips over its first difficulty: the repercussions of the Madrid massacre. Was it Al Qaeda that threw the PP out of the government? As a conclusion, that would be terrible: a terrorist organization causes a party to lose an election...

...The only shadow is that one so difficult to say out loud: that this is a victory facilitated by a terrorist group. I swear to you that my hands are trembling as I write this.

This is by Albert Rexach:

...(At Rajoy's concession) Aznar was thoughtful enough to raise the right hand of the loser that he himself selected without knowing that Bin Laden was voting in these elections too.

Here is Florencio Dominguez:

...The upcoming days for Basque PP members will not be easy: isolated in the Basque country, without the support of the (central) Government, without leadership, and with the eternal terrorist threat hanging over their heads.

Posted 21:50 by John

Well, the people have spoken and I do not like what they said at all. With half the votes counted, the Socialist Party will score over 160 seats, while the PP will drop to around 140. The other big gainer was Esquerra Republicana, who are now a major force in Madrid with about eight deputies. CiU will drop to 10 or so.

What happened? It's clear: the people of Spain are not willing to risk standing up to domestic or international terrorism and would prefer to appease the terrorists in hopes that they will be left alone in the future. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will be the next Prime Minister, and one of the first things he will do is pull Spain out of the Coalition. Spain will join the Paris-Berlin axis. I assume Spanish troops will soon be leaving Iraq.

The especially bad news is that Zap doesn't have an absolute majority and will have to form a coalition with the Communists and just maybe Esquerra Republicana, just like here in Barcelona and Catalonia. Prepare yourselves for four years of that. Carod-Rovira as Interior Minister. Good God.

The Madrid bombings changed everything. The people have decided that Islamic terrorists are responsible, though that is in no way determined yet, and they have decided that it is the fault of Jose Maria Aznar and the PP government. Congratulations to the terrorists, whether ETA or Islamic: you've done your job. You disrupted the election. You beat Aznar and Rajoy and the PP, who were way ahead in all the polls before the bombings. And congratulations to the leftist parties, too. They won this election--well, not quite fair and square, more like pretty dirty, what with exploiting the bombing to accuse the government of lying with no evidence. But they won. They won, democratically, a clear victory.

A victory for appeasement. A victory for cowardice. The Spanish people demonstrated today that they have no courage.

Posted 20:20 by John

The first exit polls are being reported by the various TV networks. TV 1, TV 3, and Antena 3 all have the Socialist Party as the winner of tonight's elections, while Tele 5 has the PP in front. TV 3's percentages are PSOE 41.4%--PP 36.9%, which the other networks except Tele 5 are also showing. Most of the polls have the PSOE with 154-158 seats and the PP with 150-154. Tele 5 has the PP in the 160s and the PSOE in the 140s. Turnout is extremely high and much of that extra turnout is clearly a protest vote against the government. It looks to me like the PP is going to lose a couple or three percentage points across the board to the Socialists compared to the 2000 elections, and Esquerra Republicana is apparently going to poll big and pull down 7 or so seats here in Catalonia. However, these are just exit polls and we'll see how things look when real results start coming in.

Posted 19:28 by John

Quick Election Day update: The Spanish secret service still has not been able to authenticate the alleged Al Qaeda video. Voter participation is very high, which is not necessarily a good thing; when extra votes are brought out by a disaster like the Madrid bombing, most of them tend to be emotional and cast by ill-informed people. I'm just going to guess here that what we're going to see tonight will be an even sharper division of Spain into conservative and leftist forces. My bet is that in central Spain the PP will be strengthened and in Catalonia the left will win by a large margin. TV 3 is openly campaigning against the PP. We should have some kind of numbers reasonably soon, and I should be able to tell you who won long before midnight.

Posted 13:23 by John

Here's the latest at 1:30 on Sunday, election day. Very early this morning, at about 1 AM (after I'd gone to bed), Acebes went on TV again and said more or less the following: The cops got a call saying they should go pick up a videotape deposited in a public wastebasket. On that tape a man dressed Arab-style and speaking Arabic with a Moroccan accent said he was named Abu Dujan Al Afgani and was the "military spokesman" for Al Qaeda in Europe. The man, who showed his face, stated that these attacks were retaliation for "the crimes committed in the world and concretely in Iraq and in Afghanistan". This man had never spoken before in any capacity and was unknown to both Spanish and foreign intelligence.

The five arrested men are apparently the suppliers of the mobile phones and fake phone cards to the bombers. The two men being interrogated, Spanish citizens of Indian origin, have been released.

La Vanguardia's headline, "Al Qaeda confirms on video authorship of massacre", seems to me to be as much of a hasty jump to conclusions as the one that the Government and I both committed.

Posted 12:34 by John

The death toll in the Madrid bombings has reached 200, and the wounded count is at 1511. 266 people are still hospitalized, with 17 in critical condition, 41 in very serious condition, 138 in serious condition, 42 in good condition, and 28 in an undisclosed condition.

La Vanguardia is running a series of short biographies of the victims, which we are summarizing here as a tribute to the dead.

Carlos Tortosa Garcia, chemical engineer, 26, San Fernando de Henares. Carlos got up at 6:30 every day, drove to the train station, took the train to Atocha, and there picked up the high-speed train to the Repsol plant in Puertollano, south of Madrid. He commuted 400 kilometers a day. Ironically, Carlos had survived last year's accidental explosion at the Puertollano plant that killed nine of his co-workers. He was a pacifist activist; he'd gone to all the demonstrations against the Iraq war. He had just bought a car and was saving up to buy an apartment and marry his girlfriend. Carlos's father is a well-known CC.OO. union leader.

Carlos Fernandez, construction worker, 39, Alcala de Henares. Carlos arrived in Spain from Peru only 24 days before his death. He was a native of Lima. He had been a government bureaucrat there, but could not live on his salary, so he emigrated and found a job working construction in Madrid. His three brothers in Madrid encouraged him to move there; he lived in an apartment with them in Alcala. Carlos leaves his widow, a son, and a daughter in Peru.

Jose Miguel Valderrama Lopez, bank employee, 25, San Fernando de Henares. Jose Miguel lived with his parents and his brother, but soon he was going to move with his girlfriend of five years into an apartment he had bought. He enjoyed traveling and was famous among his friends for his attention to neatness and order. He was politically active and a union member. His 26th birthday would have been today.

Hector Manuel Figueroa Prado, plasterer, 33, Madrid. Hector was a native of Santiago, Chile. He, his wife, and their seven-year-old son arrived in Madrid a year ago. Hector and his father-in-law worked together as plasterers and hoped to open their own business someday. His father-in-law happened to catch an earlier train than Hector on the morning of the 11th and was not hurt. Hector was an evangelical Protestant and his religion was very important to him. He died at El Pozo.

Maria Jose Alvares Ordonez, civil servant, 48, Alcala de Henares. Maria Jose worked in the Education department of the Madrid regional government. Her parents were farmers in Asturias; Maria Jose moved to Alcala for work and married and then separated. She leaves a 23-year-old son, her parents, and a sister.

David Santamaria Garcia, technician, 22, Guadalajara. David was on the train because he was going to have his medical checkup; he was finishing his internship at Alstom, the train manufacturing company. He was going to be a maintenance technician on the high-speed train line. David was traveling along with a friend and co-worker, Guillermo Senent, who was also killed. He was known as a fine soccer player; he had played on the Guadalajara B team. He leaves his parents, sister, and girlfriend. His body was "very much damaged by the shock wave".

Neil Hebe Astocondor Masgo, mover, 34, Coslada. Neil was a native of Lima, Peru. He had been in Spain for two years and had just received his legalization papers; he worked for a moving company. Neil's wife lived with him in Coslada, but their children of 12 and 10 years had stayed behind in Lima. He died in the field hospital at El Pozo.

Posted 21:13 by John

I should point out that the people detained in Madrid are linked to having sold the mobile phone and fake phone card used as a timer in the backpack bomb that didn't go off, so this isn't precisely ironclad proof of an Al Qaeda job.

The left is trying to take full advantage of the situation; there was a "spontaneous" demonstration--some of the signs looked surprisingly professional, but then again they may be left over from some other demo--in front of the PP headquarters in Madrid, that drew at least 500 and maybe 3000 people accusing the Government of lying and of failing to appease Islamic terrorists. Supposedly this demo was organized by mobile phone, which just isn't the good old committee-and-bureaucracy let's-sing-the-Internationale Old Left we all know and love. TV 3 is making a big deal out of this. The other stations aren't paying it nearly as much attention.

Well, we'll see how this affects tomorrow's elections. I personally am going to wager that nearly everyone who is going to vote has his mind pretty much made up, and that this terrorist mass murder isn't going to greatly affect how people vote. It will just make both sides more partisan.

Alfredo Perez Rubalcalba from the Socialist Party just stated at a televised press conference that Spaniards "deserve a government that doesn't lie to them". This is politicizing the massacre, of course, not to mention illegally campaigning on the last day before the election, not to mention calling the Prime Minister and his Cabinet liars with no evidence. (In Spain it's not legal for political parties to campaign on the day before election day, dubbed the "day of reflection".)

Posted 20:25 by John

BREAKING NEWS

It is 8:25 PM. Interior Minister Angel Acebes has just given a press conference live on national television in order to announce that five arrests have been made and two more interrogations are taking place. Three of the arrested are Moroccan and two are Indian. The two people being interrogated are Spanish citizens of Indian origin. All the arrests and detentions were made in Madrid by Spanish national police. The clue that lead investigators to these people was the mobile phone used as a timer in the backpack bomb that didn't go off.

The reports floating around, I do not know with what validity, are that at least one of the Moroccans has connections with a Moroccan radical Islamic group, that they are all males under age 30, that at least some of the arrests were made in the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapies, that these men were infrastructure operatives (safe houses, transport, and the like) rather than the material authors of the bombing, and that the police are looking for three men seen wearing ski masks and getting on and off trains at Alcala de Henares.

Looks to me like I am at the very least partially wrong in my insistence on ETA as the terrorist group responsible for the bombings. The arrested people certainly aren't Basques, though we don't know who put the bombs on the trains yet. The operation might have been done in collaboration with ETA or with one of many radical Islamic groups, including Al Qaeda.

This is wonderful news. We are now seven suspected conspirators closer to finding the killers. May they all be caught, tried, convicted, and punished soon.

I maintain that those on the left who accuse the government of covering up the truth are wrong. They, and I, jumped to the conclusion that it must have been ETA, but they continued investigating down various paths and threads and informed us promptly when this latest break in the case happened. Obviously, they are keeping some basic details under wraps, but we have been told the essential news as it has been happening, whether it pointed toward the ETA hypothesis or not.

Posted 11:43 by John

In order to show the reaction of the Spanish press to the Madrid bombings, we're going to excerpt several articles from today's La Vanguardia. This first one is on page 5 and is by Jaume V. Aroca. It is about the demonstration held yesterday evening here in Barcelona, which may have been attended by as many as 1.5 million people.

Along the march there were moments of silence, but also some shouted slogans could be heard. Of all of them, the most repeated was "No to the war" (in reference to Iraq), which could be read on many banners and signs that the demonstrators carried and which did not form a part of the unitary slogan agreed to...

During the march, Vice-President Rodrigo Rato was insulted, along with the PP members who accompanied him, among them the president of the party in Catalonia, Josep Pique, who verbally confronted some of the demonstrators who were shouting at him and claiming that the Government "was lying" about the authentic authors of the bloodiest attentat in history...

That's why I didn't go to the demonstration. I will not march alongside such people.

Here is a fairly reasonable list of points of evidence pointing to either Al Qaeda or ETA as the murderers, from page 8, which I've summarized:

Pointing toward ETA:

1. They've been trying to pull off a big hit in Madrid for years.
2. They know the Henares area and the etarras arrested in Cuenca on Feb. 29 with 536 kilos of dynamite had a map of the area.
3. They tried to pull off a big hit with a bomb on a train last Christmas Eve.
4. They wanted to disrupt the first elections without their illegalized political arm, Batasuna, at all costs.
5. They often use the types of explosives used in Madrid.
6. They don't always warn before an attentat.
7. The internal debate within the organization may have radicalized them even more.
8. They left booby traps for the bomb squad, a habitual ETA tactic.
9. So far there is no evidence of any suicide terrorist.

Pointing toward Al Qaeda:

1. The van used had a tape with Koranic verses in it.
2. The explosives (do they mean detonators?) found in that van are not habitual with ETA.
3. ETA has never committed such a large mass bombing before.
4. ETA has never used so many people on a hit.
5. This massacre will offend at least some of ETA's base support, who don't mind killing cops but draw the line at civilians.
6. There are parallelisms with 9-11 and this attack is 2 1/2 years later.
7. The police have been watching out for an ETA attack but not an Al Qaeda one.
8. The titadyne is better quality than typical ETA titadyne.
9. Islamic terrorist gangs do not always use suicide bombers.
10. Islamic terrorists already hit Spanish interests in Casablanca "because of our support for Bush".

It seems to me that all these points are fairly reasonable, but I still say those indicating ETA are much stronger than those indicating Al Qaeda or some other Islamic group.

Here's Jordi Barbeta's analysis masquerading as a news story from page 24; I actually generally like Barbeta and I think this analysis is pretty good.

In the end it was impossible to prevent the dead and wounded from the Madrid massacre from being converted into ammunition for the political struggle over the repercussions of the tragedy on the election results on Sunday. The extended belief that the electorate's reaction would be very different in the case that the killers were ETA terrorists or Al Qaeda terrorists caused the Government to make official statements and also caused insinuations from the opposition parties that made the unity of the democratic forces wobble both before and after the mass demonstrations of yesterday.

The Government insisted all day that the suspicion that ETA is behind the attentat is still the most viable, while several opposition parties and also the Basque regional government insinuated that the government was hiding information that would support the hypothesis of an Al Qaeda attack as a reprisal for Spain's support for the war in Iraq.

ETA, which has always had as its primary strategic objective the division of the democratic forces and does not miss any opportunity to exercise a maximum of protagonism, hurried to inform the daily Gara that it "had no responsibility" for the Madrid bombings one hour before the demonstrations in the provincial capitals, and just a few moments after Interior Minister Angel Acebes reiterated that ETA was the principal suspect.

Nevertheless, the controversy had begun early in the morning, since the subject protagonized the radio and TV talk shows and leaders of opposition parties had already denounced the Government's alleged biased attitude regarding the administration of information. With this argument, leftist party militants and members of the pacifist groups that led the movement against the war in Iraq appeared at the demonstrations incorporating their "No to the war" to the antiterrorist slogans. At the Barcelona demonstration, the emblem that the pacifists used against the Iraq war was carried by hundreds of persons.

Posted 10:31 by John

In Memoriam

La Vanguardia will be publishing short biographies of each of the 199 victims of the terrorist bombings in Madrid, much as the new York Times did after 9-11. We will reproduce summaries of each one in their memory.

Ana Isabel Gil Perez, office worker, 28, Torrejon de Ardoz. Ana was married and seven months pregnant. She died in La Paz hospital after suffering five heart attacks. Surgeons performed an operation to extract Ana's baby, but he died too. Ana was looking forward to her son's birth and to her sister's wedding.

Rodolfo Benito Samaniego, industrial engineer, 26, Alcala de Henares. Rodolfo was a pretty sharp fellow. He was an engineer who specialized in thermal energy, and at the same time he was studying to pass the exam to qualify as a math teacher; he really liked teaching more than engineering. He was carrying his math books in his bag. Rodolfo had a lot of friends and had been dating his high school sweetheart for seven years. He was looking forward to walking the Road to Santiago this summer; he had already done it three times.

Ana Martin Fernandez, secretary, 35, Santa Eugenia. Ana had a psychology degree and worked for the Madrid Press Association, where she was very popular. Many journalists knew her personally. She was a small woman with a big smile, her friends say. She was married and had a four-year-old daughter named Paula.

Osama El Amrati, construction worker, 23, Alcorcon. Osama was from Tangier, Morocco, and had lived in Madrid for five years. He spoke good Spanish and was integrated in the community, with many friends both Spanish and Moroccan; he shared an apartment with some Moroccan friends in Alcorcon. He enjoyed soccer and loved talking about it. His aunts said that he was very happy in Madrid. He worked in construction with one of his cousins in El Pozo. Osama's dream was to become a professional chef; that's what he listed as his profession on his passport.

Inmaculada Castillo Sevillano, office worker, 39, Alcala de Henares. Inma was a widow; her husband had drowned when he was 31 and she was 29. She leaves two orphan children, a girl of 19 and a boy of 15. Inma had a hard road, working non-stop to support her children, to whom she was very close. Despite her misfortune, she was a lively and cheerful person, say her friends.

Cipriano Castillo Munoz, metal worker, 55, San Fernando de Henares. Cipriano was a local activist, involved in various causes, and his leftist sympathies were well-known in his neighborhood. Cipriano was married, with a 29-year-old daughter and a 27-year-old son. He enjoyed reading and hiking and had a good sense of humor. His body was damaged so badly it took them twelve hours to identify it.

Sara Centenera, student, 18, Alovera. Sara had been an excellent high school student with the Salesians in Guadalajara, and was in her first year as a university student of physical therapy in Madrid. She came from a small town where her family had always lived, and leaves her parents and a 22-year-old brother. Sara was a shy girl who nonetheless was the "mother hen" of her group of friends.

Juan Pablo Moris Crespo, student, 32, Alcala de Henares. Ironically, Juan Pablo was well-known for his anti-terrorist activism; he once traveled to Bilbao to take part in a demonstration. He was studying engineering while working part-time as a technical translator from English. Juan Pablo leaves his parents and two sisters.

David Vilela Fernandez, librarian, 23, Alcala de Henares. David worked in the archives at the National Library in Madrid. His friends remember him as a nice guy with a good heart; they nicknamed him "Wrinklehands" because his hands were enormous and rough. He will be buried in his family's hometown of Yebra. Two of his co-workers were killed along with him.

Federico Sierra Seron, military officer, 37, Alcala de Henares. Federico had reached the rank of "comandante" in the Spanish Army. He had studied for the General Staff and was an expert in tanks, and for some time was part of an airborne unit. He had served in Bosnia as part of the NATO general headquarters representing the Spanish peacekeeping forces there, where he was awarded two medals. His wife is Bosnian, from Gorazde; they have a three-year-old son. Federico's father is a general, currently the military governor in Navarra.

Part of the tragedy here is that the people killed were all solid citizens, among the best and the brightest, family people, people on the train before 8 AM to get to work or school. These were people with prospects, responsible and dedicated people, people who made a difference in the lives of those around them.

If a bit of tasteless levity is permitted, this is the kind of victim biography we are NOT going to see:

Paco Hurganariz Sobacofetido, town drunk, mid-fifties, cardboard box under the highway underpass. Paco was well-known in the bars of his neighborhood, most of which he was banned from. Every weekend night he would get especially lit up on box-o-wine and pick a fight with someone; his friend Manolo, the other local drunk, points to this as a sign of Paco's sociability, pointing out that Paco's fights were nearly always preceded by an intellectual discussion of some sort. Manolo remembers that Paco's favorite humorous expression, repeated to everyone around him, was "Me cago en la puta madre que te pario!", followed by Paco's trademark laugh. Paco was possibly best known to his neighbors as "that crazy guy who's usually passed out on the church steps." Perhaps he was best-known and most popular among the members of the local police force; they remember that Paco used to spit on them "in a friendly sort of way". Paco leaves two ex-wives and six neglected children, most of whom fondly remember the way he used to affectionately beat and rape them every time he got liquored up.

Posted 17:35 by John

199 people are dead from 11 countries. I made a mistake before; many bodies, more than 70, have not yet been identified.

Zap, Ibarretxe, Carod, Jose Blanco (the Madrid Socialist party boss), and that lot are all accusing Prime Minister Aznar and the People's Party of holding back information and not telling the citizenry all they know. Without the slightest lick of evidence, of course. Aznar was forced to go on TV and rotundly deny such absurd and baseless allegations.

Gaspar Llamazares, the scum who is the leader of the Communists, has called upon all Communists and "people of the left" to carry "No to the war" signs at the official anti-terrorist demonstrations to be scheduled for seven o'clock this afternoon. Of course I am repulsed and horrified by the Madrid bombings, in case you hadn't noticed. But I will not participate in a demonstration that is supposed to be against terrorism which the Communists are going to hijack to broadcast their puerile anti-Americanism, and I will not participate in a demonstration that is going to be manipulated by the same crew of leftists as always for their own electoral purposes. So I'll be watching it on TV and, I suppose, blogging it.

According to TV 3, the Corriere della Sera is reporting that a group of some 80 Basque terrorists made their way to Iraq after May 20, 2003, in order to join the Saddamite resistance. Most of them have left, but some have stayed under the cover of NGO workers. Two of them were those arrested in Cuenca with more than 500 kilos of explosives. If this is true, and I want to see a lot of evidence that it is before I believe it, then ETA is a full member, and one in good standing, of the Terror International.

Trevor from Kaleboel has a pretty shocking photograph you ought to check out, which shows how stupid the local high school kids are. He's also got a link to this article from the Guardian, which is a pretty good analysis piece that ought to answer a good few of the questions you might have.

Josep Lluis Carod-Rovira, a notable piece of dogshit in human form and leader of Esquerra Republicana, the Catalan independentistas, had this to say, according to Libertad Digital:

In the climate of mistrust, Carod-Rovira has taken advantage of the opportunity to make accusations: "Aznar," he emphasized, "is leaving the Government with 200 dead and more than 1400 wounded. His Government has not been capable, either in international politics or within the state, to take adequate measures so that within its territory one can live tranquilly, safely, at peace, and with basic freedoms guaranteed."

At a press conference, according to the Europa Press agency, the secretary-general of Esquerra Republicana said that the Government is "holding back and covering up information" about the Madrid bombings, and he demanded that the Executive make clear to the citizens before the elections whehter Al Qaeda perpetrated the massacre. In Carod's opinion, the only objective of the Government is "not to modify the line of argumentation of its campaign one millimeter." To Carod, maintaining the line of investigation regarding ETA seems to be an attempt to "continue the media punishment and political criminalization of democratic Basque nationalism and of ourselves as a peaceful independentista option."

Wait a minute. If I get this right, Carod is saying that the Government is investigating ETA involvement in the Madrid massacre in order to screw him and his party over personally. This is paranoia, self-victimization, and conspiracy-mindedness to an extreme degree. Carod and his followers are literally mentally ill.

Posted 15:09 by John

Top Ten Jobs Zap Is Fit To Hold

10. The guy who bites the heads off chickens for a dollar at the carnival
9. Bathhouse attendant
8. Sex phone customer service
7. Cubicle mopper at the peep show
6. Understudy for The Joker
5. Local news weatherman
4. Porno film soundtrack composer
3. Mahout
2. Liza Minnelli's husband
1. Drivers-ed teacher

Posted 14:26 by John

You will want to read this. Tim Blair's blog will shortly host our friends from HispaLibertas, Franco Aleman and Golan, commenting in English on the Madrid bombings. I assume they are preparing the text right now. So check it out.

Posted 13:16 by John

The official death toll is 198, with 1463 wounded. Some 15 corpses have not been identified yet.

The technique used by the bombers was quite simple. They got on commuter trains heading for Madrid at the Alcala de Henares station, placed backpacks loaded with explosives on the luggage racks, and slipped out of the train during the two minutes the trains stop at Alcala.

The Interior Ministry is looking for nine suspects, six men and three women. According to La Vanguardia, they've even got photographs of at least some of them. It seems to me that when these people get caught the "mystery" of who planted the bombs will be solved.

Why I am convinced ETA did it

1) It fits their MO. The bombs were made with small quantities, 8-12 kilos, of titadyne and what they're calling "compressed dynamite", which is the standard ETA technique.

2) The operation was within their capacity. To pull this one off you would need a bombmaker, who obviously never got anywhere near the trains; a couple of spies to spend a couple of weeks scouting the ground; a couple of people to transport the bombs; somebody running a safe house or two; and the actual bomb planters. While ETA is weakened and on its last legs, they've got the capability to pull off an operation of this size. They didn't need any specially trained pilots or suicide fanatics or the ability to beat airport security or huge amounts of money or international connections to commit such a massacre. All they needed was a hundred kilos of explosives, a skilled bombmaker, and 15-20 conspirators who may well have been working in several different cells.

3) It fits their recent history. The most significant clue is that on Dec. 24, 2003, they planted a bomb on a train in San Sebastian that was timed to go off when the train reached Chamartin Station in Madrid. Fortunately, the bomb planters were caught and the train was stopped at Burgos, where the bomb was discovered. The MO was exactly the same as in the Madrid bombings except that the bomb was larger, 50 kilos of titadyne, and hidden inside a suitcase rather than backpacks.

On Feb. 9 of this year, an ETA caravan was stopped by the French police near Bordeaux. They were carrying all sorts of weapons and explosives to be passed to a new commando inside Spain.

Then, on the last weekend of February 2004, the police stopped another ETA caravan at Cuenca with more than 500 kilos of explosives that were to be used for terrorist attacks in Madrid.

4) It fits in with the election campaign; general elections are to be held on Sunday, March 14, in two days. ETA has tried to disrupt general elections every time Spain has had them. Most famously, during the 1995 election campaign (April 19), they tried to assassinate Jose Maria Aznar, then PP candidate for Prime Minister. Aznar survived the bombing because of his armored limousine. A passer-by was killed.

5) The story that ETA "always gives a warning" before planting a bomb is simply false. They didn't give a warning when they loaded that bomb on the train in San Sebastian, for example. Or on July 14, 1986, when a bomb killed 12 people and wounded 50 in Madrid. Or on December 11, 1985, when a bomb in Madrid killed six people and wounded 19. Or on October 30, 2000, when a bomb killed three and wounded 66 in Madrid. Or on June 21, 1993, when a bomb killed seven people and wounded more than 30 in Madrid. Or on June 19, 1987, when a bomb killed 21 and wounded hundreds at the Hipercor department store on Avenida Meridiana here in Barcelona.

6) The behavior of Arnaldo Otegui, "leader" of Batasuna, the political branch of ETA. He denied ETA involvement in the bombings and blamed a group of "Islamic activists". Otegui was the first person to publicly float the hypothesis that this was an Al Qaeda bombing, though he didn't say Al Qaeda. Now, I personally don't believe anything Arnaldo Otegui says. You can believe what you want.

7) The facts are that the only other clues linking Islamic terrorists to the Madrid bombings are a) an e-mail from somebody saying he was from the Martyr Abu Hafs Al Masri Brigade, who has claimed to be behind everything from the UN bombing in Baghdad to the Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta to the blackout in the US Northeast, falsely, and b) a cassette tape with Koran verses on it found in a van linked to the bombing. That's awfully slim evidence. Also, the fact that Reuters jumped all over circumstance a) makes me extremely suspicious. Reuters is not at the top of my list of most trusted international news services.

Zap crosses the line

Just minutes ago Socialist party candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, speaking live on television, for the first time tried to use the bombings as a political issue. He was able to maintain his decency for about 26 whole hours before diving into the gutter. Zap said that the Aznar government should share everything it knows with the citizens, thus implying that was exactly what Aznar and the PP were not doing. Now, accusing the Prime Minister of holding back information from the public based on absolutely no evidence is, uh, not exactly mature, professional, reasonable, or responsible. Question number one was a direct, "Are you accusing Aznar of a coverup?", and Zap evaded the question. Number two was "Do you see a connection between the bombings and the Iraq war?", to which Zap responded "Time will tell."

This man is not fit to be truant officer, dogcatcher, or even the guy in charge of sweeping my street.

Posted 01:24 by John

Update from Spain, post-nap, tranquilizer, and a few spliffs. Interior Minister Angel Acebes is still certain this is the work of ETA, but he stated that other hypotheses are being investigated. Somebody sent an e-mail to an Arabic-language newspaper claiming responsibility in the name of Al Qaeda. Also, a van which had been stolen at the end of February was found in Alcala de Henares with six detonators and, among a pile of other things including various cassette tapes, a tape with verses from the Koran.

This is pretty flimsy ground to base a conspiracy theory on, but it's already happening. Investigations eavesdropping at the local bars determined just minutes ago that for male Spaniards who hang out in crappy bars in Barcelona, 100% are convinced of the ETA-Al Qaeda-PP-Aznar-Bush-Illuminati conspiracy to do dirt to the world in general and themselves in particular. The "Aznar fucked up and got us on America's side and now Al Qaeda has bombed us and it's America's fault" theme is rather a constant.

I understand that most Barcelonese not under the influence of what we call vino peleon around here are likely to have somewhat calmer heads.

Here's the paranoid conspiracy theory that is cropping up in my mind. ETA plants the bombs, and this was clearly an ETA-style job, but tries to make it look like Al Qaeda, or at least bring up the suspicion as best they can--and note that the first person to link the alleged "Arab resistance" group and the massacre in Madrid was none other than ETA mouthpiece Arnaldo Otegui. Their strategy: Piss off the people against Aznar and the PP, their sworn enemies, for getting us in the sights of Al Qaeda. That's a terribly narrow and selfish attitude to have--"Aznar and Bush got these people killed" for daring to use force to stop terrorism. Enough people might have that very attitude, though, that there's a backlash at the polls on Sunday against the PP and they lose the election. That's something ETA would very much like to see.

I remain convinced that ETA carried out these bombings.

Posted 19:32 by John

Death toll update: 190 dead, 1400 wounded.

Posted 14:56 by John

The most recent figures are 175 dead and 898 wounded in Madrid. Prime Minister Aznar just spoke to the country, encouraging calm and security and emphasizing that the terrorists would be defeated through legal means. There will be no military coup. If this had happened in 1979, say, there might have been at the very least a declaration of martial law. Aznar emphasized that he is in control here, as Al Haig once wisely said. Aznar, in his speech, made a reference to Franklin Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor speech, saying that March 11 was a day of infamy. Aznar explicitly referred to the "international struggle against terrorism", and made all of our feelings very clear when he said, "We will defeat them".

I suppose that the elections scheduled for Sunday, March 14, will be held; we can't let the terrorists dictate the timing of the most basic process in our democracy.

Some of the film is really, really awful. Antena 3 showed a very badly damaged human torso, and there is apparently a good deal of film that is being held back, at least for now, and I certainly undestand why.

Posted 14:11 by John

They've announced the modus operandi of the bombing operations: what the killers did was simply get on a train, unobtrusively leave a pre-set backpack, and leave through another door before the train even left the station. This "rudimentary" technique, as they called it, worked perfectly, and it fits in with ETA capabilities now: three or four kids could have pulled this off, assuming the bombs were pre-manufactured for them in some ETA hideout near Hernani or whatever. There's absolutely no reason to suspect this was anything but an ETA job. It might be interesting to find out exactly what connection ETA has with international terrorist gangs like Al Qaeda, though.

Posted 13:50 by John

Interior Minister Angel Acebes just gave a press conference. He stated that there were at least 173 dead and some 600 injured. There were 13 bombs; 3 went off at Atocha, 4 in the neighborhood of the Calle Tellez, one at Santa Eugenia, and 2 at El Pozo. 3 booby traps were disactivated by the bomb squad. In response to a direct question, Acebes placed the responsibility on ETA. He pointed out that ETA frequently acts without warning and does not usually immediately claim responsibility. Evil scum Arnaldo Otegui, the "leader" of ETA's political branch, Batasuna or whatever they call themselves now, made a speech in which he denied ETA responsibility and blamed some unnamed Islamic group, a strategy which Acebes termed "miserable".

Posted 13:18 by John

Well, here's CNN's report on the Madrid terror attack. Note that they call ETA the "Basque separatist group" when identifying them, but then they point out that the US and the EU both list ETA as a terrorist group, so I guess that's fair enough. I'd still prefer to see the word "terrorist" rather than "separatist", though. As idiotic as they are, Esquerra Republicana and Pepelu Carod-Rovira are merely separatists--they want Catalonia to separate from Spain--and not terrorists. Same with Eusko Alkartasuna. Terrorists are non-lawful bearers of arms who use violence and murder people for political ends. That definition sure fits ETA in my book, and not these other legitimate though wrongheaded political parties.

Posted 13:01 by John

Attention Americans: They just interviewed a guy on Antena 3 named Michael from the United States. He said he had Spanish and American nationality, and lives and works in Madrid. His spoken Spanish was not very good. He was on one of the trains and two different bombs went off in his car. He suffered fairly mild injuries and was taken to the hospital in a police van.

So far the death toll is given at between 142 and 170. The number of wounded must be at least several hundred. At the Hospital Gregorio Maranon, they received 250 wounded. Their "catastrophe plan" is in effect, with all shifts on duty. They have performed 35 operations; six died on the table. Among the badly wounded are five children.

All of the wounded have apparently been evacuated and now they are removing the dead from the trains. At El Pozo they are lining up the body bags on the station platform. Many of the people on board the trains were university students and immigrant workers. There are four investigating magistrates on the scene, including Ruiz Polanco and Garzon. These are the people responsible for the death count of 142.

What we know so far: There were thirteen backpack bags, each loaded with fifteen kilos of titadine. Eleven of them went off in four different trains, two at Atocha, one at El Pozo, and one at Santa Eugenia. The police say that because of the explosive used it's a 90% probability ETA did it. They also say that a new technique was used in the making of the bombs.

Anyone needing information should call 112. The other numbers we gave are only for family members of possible victims, so don't call them unless you have reason to believe that one of your relatives might have been on one of those trains.

The government is saying relax and keep calm. That sounds like good advice.

Posted 12:10 by John

The official death toll has risen to 131.

Posted 11:03 by John

Figures for the number of dead range from a low of 62 to a high of 155. At least a dozen people were killed at each of three stations. There are still bodies inside the trains. 350 wounded people have been admitted to hospitals. Two more bombs were found, one at Atocha and the other at El Pozo, and were blown up in controlled explosions by the bomb squad. Madrid is completely snarled up. If I were in Madrid, I'd just stay home. You'll be one fewer person in the way. They don't want any more blood donations, so don't worry about that.

To Americans and Brits who know people in Madrid: If they're tourists just passing through it's highly unlikely they'd have been in any of the trains or commuter stations involved; same if they live in the city, because the victims seem to have been mostly working people taking the train into town from Guadalajara, Alcala de Henares, and Torrejon. If you should know someone from that area who works in Madrid, though, I'd be a little worried, but don't panic. Chances are he or she is OK; give him a chance to get hold of you when he can. Cell phone service in much of Madrid is out, so don't freak out if you can't get hold of him or her. If you have reason to think that one of your FAMILY MEMBERS was on one of the trains, call the police at 91 586 70 00 or RENFE, the train company, at 900 200 222. Don't just call there looking for general information.

There will be a demonstration tomorrow at 7 PM everywhere in Spain. I'm going, for whatever it's good for.

Posted 10:20 by John

There are some semi-official statements being made. The official provisional death count is 62, but the Tele 5 reporter says he can see several bodies inside or near the train that the police are leaving alone, either because they suspect another bomb or because they are giving all their attention to the living.

Well, they've shown the dead-body pictures, and damn, are they grim. Not much is being hidden from our eyes.

The bombs went off between 7:40 and 7:45 Madrid time. There were four: one on a train that went off at the El Pozo commuter station, another on a train that went off at the Santa Eugenia commuter station, a third on a train that went off at the Atocha commuter station, and a fourth on platform 2 at the Atocha commuter station. The Atocha long-distance and high-speed train stations were unaffected. All three trains bombed were on the Guadalajara-Alcala de Henares-Linares commuter line. In addition the cops blew up a suspicious Ford Fiesta outside the Atocha station in a controlled explosion. There are reports of another explosion, possibly controlled, at the El Pozo station. All train service through these three stations has been stopped, of course, including the long-distance and high-speed trains running through the main Atocha station.

Posted 09:51 by John

This is just awful. Death estimates range from "dozens" to 100 to 150. They're still evacuating Atocha; we're quite clearly not being shown the very worst film, but what we're seeing is bad enough. They're not showing any dismembered bodies or uncovered dead people. I'm not complaining at all. It's damned obvious what we're seeing. There was a girl lying face down with blood everywhere while she was being attended to and a young boy who was completely covered with his own blood dazedly leaning against a traffic sign and a guy sitting on a stretcher while they carried him away with his shirt off and blood all over the place.

Rajoy has said that the election campaign is over for him right now, and I assume the same is true for Rodriguez Zapatero. TV 3 interviewed Carod-Rovira and he was speechless; the men he shook hands with did this, and he knows he was played for a fool. Ibarretxe has strongly condemned the bombing. He seems to mean it. I bet he fears an anti-Basque backlash, which I want to warn everybody about right now. The ETA did this, not the Basques. Most Basques are against ETA, and this has probably changed a few minds around there. I can only hope. Anyone who continues supporting Herri Batasuna or whatever it's called now is a cynical lover of assassins.

Note to Americans: This is NOT an Al Qaeda job. It's the ETA. Please make sure that CNN and company stop calling these murderers "separatists" or "guerrillas". Hey, if they get lucky and there are 160 deaths today, they'll have scored more than a thousand all-time.

Posted 09:31 by John

Now they're talking 100 dead and 200 seriously injured in total at the three stations. There are not enough ambulances and the hospitals are filling up. They've made a call for blood donors. The film they're showing is just awful, and that's just the walking wounded and the body bags.

Posted 09:17 by John

They're showing film on TV 3. The Atocha train's third car has an enormous hole blown in its side and you can see the workers carrying away body bags. There are at least fifty dead and a hundred seriously injured. There's film of the walking wounded being attended to in the field hospitals. This is not the first time ETA has murdered during an election campaign, but never so big and never so close to election day. Central Madrid is paralyzed. The trains have been stopped and so have at least several subway lines.

Earlier reports of a bomb at the Madrid parliament building were wrong; the bomb was planted at the nearby Santa Eugenia station.

Nobody's claimed responsibility yet but this is clearly an ETA job. Prime Minister Aznar is meeting right now with his emergency cabinet. Rodrigo Rato is apparently on the scene, and Rodriguez Zapatero is supposed to be there at any time. The Basque lendekari Ibarretxe has condemned the bombings. The PP and PSOE are suspending all political campaigning.

Posted 09:09 by John

TV 3 is reporting fifty dead at Atocha. The explosions at the Santa Eugenia and El Pozo commuter stations east and northeast of downtown, respectively, also caused fatalities. The bombs were set to go off at rush hour and kill as many people as possible. Field hospitals have been set up outside each of the three stations. They have the first film images from outside Atocha and there are a good few walking wounded being attended to while more seriously injured people are being taken away by ambulance. One correspondent has seen the train that exploded at Atocha; it was a train of a locomotive and four cars. The last three passenger cars were completely destroyed and there were bodies on the tracks. There is at the very least a rumor that there is a carbomb set outside Atocha to go off in the middle of the chaos.

Our greatest sympathies toward and condolences for the people of Madrid. We will never forget this morning. Now all there is to do is let the emergency workers and police and doctors do their jobs.

Posted 08:43 by John

The blast could be heard at a range of 200 kilometers.

Atocha is the city's main train station; it's in central Madrid very near the Prado. That is where it looks like the worst carnage happened.

The Gregorio Maranon hospital is going all-out with the injured coming in.

Posted 08:25 by John

BREAKING NEWS

It is 8:25 AM here. Less than an hour ago somebody, most likely ETA, planted three bombs in the Madrid train stations of Atocha, Santa Eugenia, and El Pozo. Preliminary sources say five dead and a whole lot of injured. We'll come back to this story when we get some more information. Here's the link in Spanish from Libertad Digital.

Posted 16:33 by John

The Iraqis did actually sign the transition Constitution yesterday after presumably a good bit of arm-twisting and united by the knowledge that whatever the Americans want, it's better than Saddam. The Kurds demanded a veto and got it; I imagine the most sensible thing in the long run would be to create a tripartite Shiite Arab-Sunni Arab-Sunni Kurd federal state, with Baghdad perhaps as a federal capital district since it's in Sunni Arab territory but a lot of Kurds and especailly Shiites live there. You'd have to give a veto to each of the three communities, making it impossible for the government to do anything that one of the groups strongly opposed. The Shiites will agree to a federal state, says La Vanguardia. A formula for weak government, agreed, but some weakness may be what the Iraqis need right about now. They've had far too many years of the iron hand and it's time to let a hundred flowers bloom.

The constitution includes a minimum of 25% women in the elective assembly, a bill of rights including freedom of expression and religion, Islam as only one of various sources of law, civil control of the military, elections before January 2005, and the recovery of Iraqi sovereignty on June 30. So how could anybody in his right mind not be jumping up and down and celebrating the freedom of 23 million people? These people are going to get a democratic government with the rule of law! I thought all of us were pro-democracy.

Beirut Bob Fisk says the new constitution "is full of questions with no answers", though. Bob has spoken. I therefore conclude that this document will turn out to be a huge success.

Vanguardia headline: "US and France need to send more troops to Haiti to restore order." That's on page 6 in the news section. Notice how big they are on us invading some country when France is in favor of it? Because we sure the hell have invaded Haiti with a lot less reason on our side than when we went into Saddam's Iraq. We provide the muscle, two-thirds of the troops and the logistics, and we give them the credit. Good. America doesn't need any ego-strokes of glory. We're not going to win anyone over; the buzzards are already circling. Seems that the Vangua is already implying that Ricardo Ortega, the dead Spanish journalist, was only allegedly killed by bullets fired by pro-Aristide gunmen. There were Americans firing too, and one of the Aristide gunmen was killed. So doubt is already being cast on the official story on how Ortega met his death.

I've changed my position on gay marriage. The epidemic has spread to New Jersey, Seattle, and Portland. This is one of these issues in which there's a minority--and gays are maybe five percent of men and two percent of women, maximum, according to a reliable sex survey done in the '90s; the old Kinsey 10% figure is way high and the Kinsey study is now considered bogus anyway because the people surveyed weren't a cross-section of the population--that is very insistent on an issue, and the rest of the population really doesn't care that much. There's no fight to the anti-gay marriage movement like there is with the anti-abortion movement, and like there wasn't much fight to the pro-gays in the military movement, which is why it didn't happen during the Clinton administration.

Well, when civil disobedience becomes this widespread, maybe it's time we sat down and tried to see it from the disobeyers' point of view. They really feel that they're not considered equal to heterosexuals because they can't get married. Well, once they figure out that that cute butt is gonna turn to lard within six months after he/she/it gets the gold ring, that there'll be no slipping out to the bareback bars when hubby starts getting in your space, and that she's going to take you for the Manhattan studio and Fire Island beach house when the inevitable divorce comes, not to mention the endless bitching and lawsuits over who gets the couple's beagle, maybe they'll change their minds back. I don't know. But they're taking this damn seriously and I can't see any important reason to object to it if they think this is such a big deal regarding their dignity and the respect they deserve.

Posted 16:07 by John

Here's a nice little Straight Dope piece about storks and babies. Storks are cool. For some reason you don't see too many around Catalonia but they're not uncommon in Castile and the rest of central Spain. I remember some especially handsome nesting storks all over the bell towers and castle in Segovia last time I was there. By the way, in Spain the stork doesn't bring babies; they come from Paris. And the English-language meme about storks bringing babies must have come from England a long time ago, because it's the expression used in American English and there are no storks in America.

Posted 12:36 by John

CELEBRITY SLUT HOOKERS!

Spanish sleazo journalist Antonio Salas has written another book; his last one was called Diary of a Skinhead. This one is supposed to denounce white slavery, but it's gotten more attention for its naming of celebrities who moonlight as high-class 'ho's. He has actually only published initials, and the local parlor game is deciding who they refer to. So far the betting leans toward Mar Saura, Sofia Mazagatos, Yola Berrocal, Marlene Morreau, Malena Gracia, Nuria Bermudez, and an alleged cousin of Penelope Cruz, among others. If you want lots of slutty pictures of all these bimbos, just google any of their names. Most of these people are celebrities due to their many bouts with plastic surgery and cocaine, and they constantly appear on the trashiest programs on Spanish TV, what Murph calls "fags and slags" shows. The American equivalent of these people would be American Idol rejects, ex-boy band members, Richard Simmons, and Anna Nicole Smith.

The programs basically consist of a TV presenter like Xavier Sarda and then all these trashy celebrities who spend the rest of the program slagging one another off, calling each other whores and sluts and liars and homos and other nice things. If you want to improve your vulgar low-life Spanish slang, just spend a few evenings with Cronicas Marcianas or with one of the afternoon "Maruja" programs. (A Maruja is a typical fiftyish Spanish lower-class housewife; the term is pejorative.)

Posted 12:19 by John

Murph reminded me that I had promised to go through my predictions for 2003, made at the end of 2002 in response to a survey by John Hawkins from Right Wing News. I was too lazy to do it so he went and did it for me and scored the exam, too. I think he was pretty rough scoring number 1 wrong, but he's the independent proctor so it's up to him. Also, the prediction for the Democrats was a joke, but I certainly had no idea of what the real answer would be. Actually, I think I did pretty well.

1. War in Iraq before March 2003? Yes. WRONG
2. Saddam still in power Jan. 1, 2004? No. CORRECT
3. Terrorist attack in the US killing more than 100 people? No. CORRECT
4. Casualties on our side in Iraq war? Maximum a few hundred, maybe zero from enemy fire. CORRECT
5. Syria still support Hezbollah? Really don't know. Doubt it. UNKNOWN
6. Large battle in Afghanistan? No. CORRECT
7. Independent Palestinian state? No. CORRECT
8. Revolution in Iran? No. CORRECT
9. US-North Korea sign deal to put end to NK nuke program? No because NK state will collapse, Bush wouldn't bargain with them anyway since they can't be trusted. WRONG
10. Yasser still in power? Yes, of the PLO, not as leader of a real state. CORRECT
11. Anthrax case solved? Domestic or foreign terrorism? Unsolved, "lone nut" rather than conspiracy. CORRECT
12. Osama? Already dead. UNKNOWN
13. Dem pres candidate 2004? Nader-Barbara Mikulski 3% of vote. Independents McCain-Lieberman 41%, Bush-Rice 56%. WRONG
14. Bush end year above 60% in popularity? Yes. WRONG
15. Dow Jones above 10,500? No, with at least two more years of a slow economy, rather early 90s-ish; then another long growth period. Just guessing. CORRECT
16. Human baby cloned? It's possible now. Won't be done, though, till the Chinese get hold of the technology in ten-twenty years. UNKNOWN

SCORE

9 CORRECT
4 INCORRECT
3 STILL UNKNOWN

Posted 13:30 by John

A Spanish journalist named Ricardo Ortega, who had been Antena 3's correspondent in Washington and Iraq and whom I did not consider a good reporter, was killed in a shootout in Haiti. Some Aristide supporters opened up on an opposition demonstration and killed six people and wounded some twenty. Ortega took one in the chest and another in the abdomen and died in a Port au Prince hospital. De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

John Kerry put his foot in it big-time, in my opinion, when he said he agreed with the Americans and French going into Haiti but that they should have supported Aristide rather than overthrowing him. The only reason I can figure Kerry said something so stupid is to pander to American black political leaders, who were strongly pro-Aristide. Now, I don't think that ordinary American black people care more than any other American about what's going on in Haiti.

Caveat on Haiti: While the going is good and there's an atmosphere of international cooperation on the issue, let's get together with the French and Canadians and CARICOM and set up a plan for some Iraq-style Marshall Plan stuff for Haiti, which is by far the crappiest place in the Americas except maybe for Cuba. A well-spent couple of billion dollars there might work wonders IF we round up the top several hundred bad guys in the country and send 'em to Guantanamo, too. And we can let the French be in charge. They'd love that.

Now, what's essentially different between the Haiti operation and the Iraq war? Both of them got rid of obnoxious dictators. In both of them there was a wide-ranging international commitment. Agreed, it was a good bit bloodier in Iraq. I can see only two big differences. The first is that in this case the French are in favor, so there's nobody going around whipping up anti-Yankee feeling. And the second is that there's no oil in Haiti so the gringo-haters can't diffuse the Iraq Big Lie: that the United States did not go into Iraq for its oil. Oil is less than 2 percent of the world GDP and the United States has more than plenty of fossil fuel energy: we're the world's second producer of oil and first in both coal and natural gas, and anything we don't have our three nearest important neighbors, the Canadians and Russians and Mexicans, will be thrilled to sell us. As for proven reserves, that doesn't matter a damn. There's enough of a supply to keep us going for hundreds of years no matter at what rate we use the stuff. The question is at what point do fossil fuels become so expensive that it becomes more economical to switch to another energy source, and that point is not coming until they have enough laser power to make nuclear fusion work or figure out how to make solar energy efficient. And when that point comes, the market will let us know.

The thing about oil is that it's instantly convertible into lots of fast, easy money, and that makes it a rather special commodity on the world market, so any tinhorn dictator who is lucky enough to take over a country with oil can instantly convert that oil into weapons. The reason the Americans keep getting mixed up in the oil-rich Middle East is that we can't allow any of those guys to use their vast fortunes gained through no merit of their own in order to do some serious damage to the world. They've already done enough and this has got to stop. (Hugo Chavez: are you listening?)

The conservatives won in the Greek elections, making Sweden, Britain, and Germany the only EU15 countries with left-of-center governments. The reason the French and Belgians have been so damn bolshy recently is due to nationalism, not leftist ideology.

Four major newspapers came out with election polls over the weekend: remember, the election is next Sunday. Estimates of the results range from a La Vanguardia low of 162 seats for the PP and a La Razon high of 176. The PSOE has a low of 134 seats in El Pais and 147 as the high in La Vangua. Everybody seems to agree that CiU will pull 10-12, the Communists 9-12, the PNV 7-8, Esquerra 5-7, and other parties 5-15. All these results are less favorable to the PP than the government survey we posted a few days ago.

Here's my list of possible scenarios, from most likely to least likely:

1. PP scores absolute majority of 176+ seats.
2. PP scores 172-175 and governs from the minority with the Canary Coalition's support and maybe that of Union Valenciana.
3. PP scores 162-171 and makes a deal with Convergence and Union along with CC and maybe UV.
4. PP scores fewer than 170 seats and everybody else makes an alliance against them.

Zap has looked goofy a couple of times recently. He posed for a photo in Marie Claire, for some reason, and they did an atrocious makeup job on him, slapped it on really thick. The universal reaction was that he looked just like the Joker from Batman. Yesterday he came out wearing a black turtleneck and Manuel Trallero said in the Vangua, "He looks like a cross between a blue-eyed working-class priest, the student leader at a university assembly, and the lead singer in a 'ye-ye' band."

Says Alfred Rexach in the Vangua, who went to an "ecosocialist" (i.e. Communist) rally on International Women's Day, whatever that is, "The ecosocialists, that is those guys who have the endless acronyms, because they always have schisms and those things and then it's a pain in the neck getting them back together (this year they're IU-ICV, but ICV is really ICV-EUiA here in Catalonia), come from the PSUC (the Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya, the old Seventies Commies, very romanticized in these parts), but now at the rallies they don't play the "Internationale" or the "Cantata for the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution" by Prokofiev, but some elevator music, which isn't exciting at all and doesn't give you the urge to take the Winter Palace or nationalize Iberdrola and Fecsa (the electric companies)."

Barcelona is actually a big convention city; the food fair is just starting up and there are lots and lots of exhibitors and the like all over town. One thing the Vangua says is that the most-eaten dish in Spain is not gazpacho or paella, but the humble fried egg. So much for Catalan culinary pretentions. Spaniards do eat an awful lot of fresh fruit, almost always of high quality, and the stats bear this out. This may be a major dietary factor that helps them live longer. So eat more fruit and ditch the damn fried eggs! Another thing the Spaniards don't do a lot is eat between meals. The light breakfast, light midmorning snack, heavy lunch, and medium dinner is a standard. They eat an average of 4.3 times a day. This keeps them fairly close to a reasonable weight, in general. You see plenty of chubby people here, and guys with beer guts and chicks with big butts, but very few huge fat tubs of goo like you see in the extra-wide aisles at Sam's Club buying these mattress-size bags of tortilla chips while chowing down on every single free sample out there. So quit the between-meal snacks if you want to lose weight.

FC Barcelona won its seventh straight league game against Mallorca, not much of a team. 3-2 in the Camp Nou, two goals by Luis Garcia and one from old hack Luis Enrique. Mallorca has one real star, Samuel Etoo, who I think is from Cameroon, and that's about it. I like Etoo; call up your local team president and tell them to buy him, because he wants out of there after this year. Barca is on 49 points, one behind Depor and five behind Valencia. Real Madrid has a eleven-point lead over Barcelona and that's just too much to overcome with nine games to play, but what was a horrible first half of the season is now starting to look pretty good. Difference: Edgar Davies. Luis Garcia has been playing well. Xavi is free to play his game. Van Bronckhorst is playing very well at left defense, frequently moving up to midfield behind Garcia at left wing. Cocu's not what he used to be, but he is doing pretty well now. Oleguer, from the youth squad, looks like he's won a job at left fullback. Of course, even when Ronaldinho doesn't have a great game, he's still one of the best players out there. Kluivert is toast. He's gone and so is Overmars. They don't get to play anymore. They might as well put their houses on the market now.

Vanguardia headline: "Wave of US puritanism hits radio". The story from EFE starts with these words: "The wave of puritanism that began when Janet Jackson showed a breast during a live TV broadcast may finish off several radio programs..." The story goes on to report on Howard Stern's self-centered whining. Does any person with more than a few grams of sense give a crap if Howard Stern gets fired? And isn't it time for the Vangua to give up on the Janet boob Super Bowl hooha? That story has been dead for weeks in the rest of the world.

There's an ugly story from La Manga, a resort complex near Murcia. The Leicester City soccer team from the English Premier Division went down to train for a few days at the Hyatt. While there nine of their players got themselves into extremely serious trouble. Seems that three German girls were staying at the hotel and these guys broke into their room, raped one of them, and sexually molested the other two. The girls reported this to the cops and nine arrests were made. One of them, who apparently was just there and didn't do anything, has been let off with no charges. Five others have been charged with breaking and entering and/or "sexual aggression" and are out on bail; the other three are in jail, no bail, and might not get out for the next ten or so years. They're all international players; one's Northern Irish, one's Scottish, and the third is Jamaican. It looks like the girls' story is true; somebody sure the hell broke into their room and assaulted them. The players say the sex was consensual, which doesn't match up with the bloody panties the cops have as evidence. This lad culture shit is just pathetic, immature punks with big money and no sense who think they can get away with whatever they want because they're rich jocks.

Posted 20:19 by John

There have been two minor stinks about campaign advertisements in the US presidential race over the last few days. First the Bush campaign rolled out its advertisements showing scenes from 9-11. The Democrats complained. Now, I figure if the Bush campaign wants to run advertisements reminding people what the "root cause" of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was, fair enough. This comes down to freedom of speech. The First Amendment guarantees the Republicans' right to make any political argument they want to make. If people are offended by their argument, it'll cost the Republicans votes. But "don't change horses in the middle of a stream" is a serious campaign issue and a legitimate pro-Bush argument--we're in this war, don't elect somebody who might radically change the current policy--that was brought up in the 1864 and 1944 elections.

Then Move On, a leftist political activism organization, came out with its own advertisements criticizing George Bush. The Republicans complained, and in addition threatened to get lower court injunctions prohibiting the anti-Bush adds from running on the ground that they violate federal campaign spending laws, a completely different issue. The Republicans say that Move On's ads are the equivalent of Democratic Party ads paid for by a different front organization, and that's not legal. Democratic Party ads have to be paid for by the Democratic Party or nobody else, and the legal question is whether the Move On ads should be considered Dem Party ads or not. The Republicans say yes, the Democrats say no.

The Spanish TV media has managed to conflate the two different issues, neither of which is of any particular importance, and come out with the impression that the Supreme Court had prohibited using footage from 9-11 in campaign advertisements, which would be major news if it weren't completely impossible.

Just to put the kibosh on a couple of common media rumors around here, Number One is that it is in no way prohibited nor censored nor nothin' to show bodies from 9-11 on American TV, as the Vanguardia has repeatedly stated. There weren't many, of course, since most of them had fallen a thousand feet with an enormous burning building (weighing thousands, if not millions, of tons) in flames falling on top of them, and then the site smoldered for weeks. Not many dead body pictures were shown because there were very few whole dead bodies. The Spanish press immediately accused the Americans of censoring dead bodies. The Vanguardia has repeated this one various times. It's simply not true. Want some evidence? Here's a quote from the New York Daily News:

One (ad), titled "Safer, Stronger," also features a one-second shot of firefighters removing the flag-draped remains of a victim from the twisted debris.

So the Bush campaign advertisements are using a one-second shot of a dead body being carried off from the World Trade Center. Some censorship.

The second is that reporters are forbidden from covering the funerals of the dead soldiers' bodies that come back from Iraq. Completely false. The family of the dead soldier makes whatever arrangements it wants. Those arrangements do not normally include an invitation to the foreign press. The Vanguardia has repeated this one several times, too, to its everlasting discredit.

Posted 12:54 by John

Well, there's finally plenty of news to talk about. The government polling agency, and don't ask me why there's a government polling agency, the grandly named Center for Social Research (CIS), has issued their most recent election poll. It gives Mariano Rajoy and the conservative People's Party an absolute majority by the minimum--176 seats out of 350 in the Congress of Deputies. There's nothing to worry about here, folks. If the polls are showing such a big PP win, the real numbers will be even larger.

63.4% think Rajoy will win though only 38.5% approve of current PP policies, and the voters say they would prefer Zap to Rajoy as the next PM 34.1%-33.0%. Then, on a scale of 1-10, they give Rajoy a ranking of 5.02 and Zap 4.95. Don't ask me to explain this. Duran Lerida of Convergence and Union got 4.3 and Gas only 3.96, demonstrating that most Spaniards don't think too much of Gas and his Communists.

Here's what I thought was the most important question; "How would you grade the general situation of Spain: very good, good, average, bad, very bad?" Well, 30.6% said good or very good, which means that they are almost certain PP voters. Only 20.3% said very bad or bad, and those are the people who won't vote PP in any circumstances, but they're divided among Socialists, Commies, and various nationalist groups. Only 1.6% didn't answer, and those other 47.5% said average. Those are the swing voters, but even if Zap manages to win over more of them than Rajoy, Rajoy's base is ten percentage points firmer than Zap's and he should win with no problem. If I were a betting man, I'd bet right now on a PP win with 176 seats or more, especially if you'll give me three to one.

Here's the geographical background: the numbers following each political party are the number of seats they're going to win in each Spanish autonomous region. PP is the People's Party, PSOE is the Socialist party, IU are the Communists, PNV are the Basque Nationalists, EA are the Basque non-violent independentistas, ChA are the Juntas Aragoneses, CiU are Convergence and Union, ERC are the Republican Left of Catalonia, PSM is the Mallorcan Socialist Party, not affiliated with the PSOE, UV is Unio Valenciana, CC is the Canarian Coalition (both of these have good relations with the PP), and BNG are the Bloc Nacional Galego, lefty Galician nationalists.

Asturias: PP 4, PSOE 3, IU 1
Cantabria: PP 3, PSOE 2
Basque Country: PNV 7, PP 7, PSOE 4, EA 1
Navarra: PP 3, PSOE 2
La Rioja: PP 3, PSOE 1
Aragon: PP 8, PSOE 4, ChA 1
Catalonia: PSOE 17, CiU 12, PP 10, ERC 6, IU 2
Balearics: PP 5, PSOE 2, PSM 1
Valencia: PP 19, PSOE 12, UV 1
Murcia: PP 6, PSOE 3
Canaries: PP 8, PSOE 4, CC 3
Andalusia: PSOE 32, PP 27, IU 2
Ceuat and Melilla: PP 2
Castile-La Mancha: PP 12, PSOE 8
Extremadura: PP 5, PSOE 5
Madrid: PP 18, PSOE 14, IU 3
Castile-Leon: PP 22, PSOE 11
Galicia: PP 14, PSOE 7, BNG 3

So the PP wins the most votes everywhere except Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Andalusia, in all of which the PP will do very well. Barring disaster--as former Louisiana governor once said, "The only way they can beat me is if they find me in bed with a dead girl or live boy"--Rajoy wins handily.

Posted 16:43 by John

I am going to throw a party on Saturday, April 10, to which I am going to invite my friends in real life and those who read the blog. So, if you're reading this and you're going to be in Barcelona on the night of April 10-11, start making plans because this is going to be a good one. As the Irish say, there'll be some good craic (conversation and generally a good time). There will even be unattached persons of the female sex here. Well, at least one or two. You're invited, no matter what.

Since my birthday will be April 11 and we've got a four-day weekend here in Catalonia--Good Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then Easter Monday--the night of Saturday the 10th seems to be a perfect time for a large bash, so that everybody can sleep late Sunday and then enjoy their Monday off sans hangover. If you're from out of town, I can book you an inexpensive room in a decent pension near here if you let me know in advance. If we get started at nine or ten then, apres-party, we, or rather y'all, can hit the justly famous Barcelona nightlife; I'm likely to crap out at around 2 AM, which is just about when the discos begin to rock.

So keep the night of Saturday, April 10, free on your schedules. And, yes, Joan, even you are invited, should you dare show your face. (If you do, we'll hand you a beer, point out the big bowls of guacamole, chili con carne, and fresh salsa, one picante recipe and one not, and argue you into submission after feeding you into tranquility.)

For details, e-mail me at crankyyanqui@yahoo.com or leave a message in the Comments section.

Posted 15:57 by John

In case you hadn't noticed, my wife and I are ailurophiles. We have five cats, the Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng, Lisa, Bart, and Oscar. Chang and Eng are beautiful cats; they are pretty obviously a mix of red tabby and Siamese. They're identical twins except Chang came out with only half a tail, while Eng's is luxurious and fluffy. They have blue eyes and the Siamese meow, and they look just like red point Siamese. Most of their fur is a creamy beigey white, and then the ears and the like are red. The thing about these two is they behave more like sheep than cats. They insist on being where you are, and if possible on top of you, ALL THE TIME. I've never seen more affectionate animals. Lisa is our only female, sweet and just a little shy. They're all neutered, but Eng likes to hump Lisa every now and then and she lets him, which is why the back of her neck always smells like cat spit. Her fur is interesting: it's white with black or gray tips, so when she lies down and curls up she's stippled with white. Bart is the boss now; he's a male in the prime of life, red tabby and white, and he likes to throw his weight around the house just a bit. He likes to sit on the top of the computer monitor, so he's often a witness to my typing here. Right now he's decided he prefers my lap. Oscar is jet-black and loves to sit on my lap too. When I wake up in the morning there are five cats between me and Remei, and Oscar is the one who'll be right under my chin. He's the most playful of all of them and the most curious; he's interested in almost anything and you can see his little kitty brain trying to figure out, say, how running water or mirrors work. The nastiest trick you can play on him is to use a hand mirror to project the sunlight onto the wall. If you move the mirror around a little the spot the sunlight makes moves too, and little Oscar just does not get the concept. We don't do that to him very often because it is kind of cruel to confuse the poor little guy. All of these are adopted off the street; we got Chang and Eng as adults and found the other three as kittens.

That's why I love posts with cat pictures. Check out this one from Snopes.com, the Urban Legends Reference Pages website and one of my very favorites. You ought to check out Snopes at least once a week to see what new rumors are going around; it's educational and entertaining, and they know their stuff and manage to be amusing too. Anyway, they confirm that these cat pictures are genuine. If you're a cat person check it out.

Posted 15:15 by John

Here's a Gregg Easterbrook blog piece from the New Republic on the possibilities that there may be life on other planets. Easterbrook is much more doubtful than, say, Carl Sagan was. Check it out.

Posted 13:43 by John

As you know, some two hundred people were killed in anti-Shiite terrorist attacks in Baghdad and Karbala yesterday, and forty more Shiites were killed in Quetta, southwest Pakistan, in an intersectarian sniper attack; fighting in Pakistan between Sunni and Shiite terrorists has killed thousands of people since the early Nineties. Yesterday was the Shiite holy day and more than a million pilgrims met in Karbala only to be attacked by suicide bombers. The Americans believe that Abu Musab Zarqawi, Osama's man in Iraq, is behind the two Iraqi bombings. Of course Al Qaeda had connections with Saddam, and of course they're one of the organizations spreading terror in Iraq.

Beirut Bob Fisk has a piece in today's Vanguardia called "Toward a dark, sinister Iraq." The thing about the Vangua is that it sells 200,000 copies a day, well more than twice what the Independent does, and so the Vangua is probably the largest diffusor of Mr. Fisk's peculiar ideas in the world. The thing about the Independent is that regional American newspapers like the KC Star, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Rocky Mountain News, and the Dallas Morning News have at least five times its readership, and even minor Midwestern papers like the Wichita Eagle-Beacon and the Topeka Capital Journal outsell the Inde-fuckin'-pendent.

No, I don't believe the Americans were behind the butchery yesterday in Baghdad and Karbala, despite the accusing cries of the Iraqi survivors of the massacre.

Gee, thanks, Bob, that's generous of you. You know, I don't think the Americans planted bombs that killed 200 Shiite Iraqi civilians who were practicing their religion, either.

However, I am very worried that Iraqi exile groups think that this might set off what the Americans want: a fear so intense regarding the possibility of a civil war that the Iraqis will sign on to whatever plan the United States might lay out for Mesopotamia.

Oh, so the bombing serves American interests, does it? Coulda fooled me. I thought the object of the bomb was to scare the shit out of the Shiites, who have always felt oppressed by the Iraqi Sunnies, and warn them away from cooperating with the Americans.

Anyway, Bob is reminded of the actions of the French in Algeria; he claims they incited the different Algerian factions to fight among themselves and so half a million people died--and Ireland, where Bob claims that the Brits, through the Protestant terrorists, pulled off three terrorist attacks in 1974 in order to divide and conquer. Now, why do these terrorist bombings remind Beirut Bob of these horrible things the French and British allegedly did? Beats the shit out of me, unless of course he IS saying the Americans were behind them for the same reasons that motivated the French and the British.

Nevertheless, the attacks yesterday in Baghdad and Karbala show a clear coordination. The same brain is behind both. But is it a Sunni brain? When the spokesman for the occupation forces suggested yesterday that it was an Al Qaeda job, he must have known what he was saying: Al Qaeda is a Sunni movement and the victims were Shiites. It isn't that I don't think Al Qaeda is capable of perpetrating such a bloodbath, but I wonder why the Americans are so insistent about the Sunni-Shiite theme and why they are interested in emphasizing the possibility of a civil war.

Oh, so the Americans ARE trying to foment a civil war, says Bob. Well, let's see then: Bob insinuates that the bomber might not have been Sunni. Now, these things do occasionally happen: some Shiite terrorist gang might have decided to pull of the killing in order to make themselves look live victims and gain international sympathy. That would be damned cold-blooded of them, though, to blow up their own faithful. And, if the Shiites weren't behind it, then, who was? Cui bono? The Americans, says Bob.

We are entering a dark and sinister phase of the history of Iraq in which dark and sinister events will take place.

WHAT THE FUCK??!! Saddam Hussein is in prison and Iraq is free. A few recent events at random: Oil production is up to 1990 levels. The schools are open. The markets and shops are open. There's plenty of food. The hospitals are open. People's wages have been dramatically increased. They've unblocked the irrigation canals that Saddam let silt up. The Shiites can freely practice their religion. And 25 Iraqi Fulbright Scholars, including women, are off to study in the United States. Oh, yeah, you don't have to be worried about being arrested or tortured or killed anymore. And with Uday cold meat, when the soccer team loses an international match, the players don't have to be worried about being beaten bloody anymore. We are entering a time of hope now that son-of-a-bitch Saddam has been overthrown. How can the end of one of the most brutal dictatorships ever in world history be the entrance to a "dark and sinister" time? Only in Fiskland.

Nevertheless, the occupation authorities, who really should contemplate a civil war as the worst-case scenario, keep screaming "Civil war!" in our ears. I can't but be worried. Above all, when the attacks make this idea reality.

I used to know a girl who when offended or angered would look at you scornfully and snarl, "Eat my fuck!" If I ever meet Beirut Bob, that's what I'm going to tell him. Then I'll ask him how he paid for his house.

Posted 01:27 by John

Here's some fun Republican Party oppo research on John Kerry and his large mouth and their penchant for conspiracy theories. I am assuming the quotes are legit; they sure look like they are. Should they be legit, this guy is too paranoid to be president, Either that or he doesn't believe what he's saying, which is also possible. (Link from James Taranto.)

Geez, this is turning into a sports blog. That's a trend I am going to terminate for the rest of the week except for this link. It's another NBA.com blog, this one by the basketball writer for the Spanish sports newspaper Marca. If you want the straight dope on European basketball, check it out. One comment: He's a little optimistic about some European players' chances to make it in the big league. Juan Carlos Navarro of Barcelona, though, is a pretty sure bet to be on an NBA team in the next year or two.

Oh, yeah, note this guy's mediocre English. Hey, he gets his point across, so the function is working just fine. (And, of course, he knows a hell of a lot more abut basketball than I do.) It's the form that has its faults here. In case you were wondering what are the most common errors that Spaniards make when writing in English, just take a gander at our pal Rafael's texts. I'm not putting him down, he's doing fine and a hell of a lot better than most Americans do with Spanish. I'm just saying that what he wrote can be analyzed and pattern errors can be picked out.

Posted 15:46 by John

One subject we had no plans to comment on was the Mel Gibson Jesus movie. (Full disclosure: I am an agnostic from a Protestant family.) Here, however, is an article from National Review on the Jesus movie and the novel The Da Vinci Code. You might want to check it out.

Here's one for you sports fans. Sports Illustrated has on their site (I can't figure how to link it--click here for SI and then look at the lower left part of your screen where it says "MLB Photo Gallery: Sizing up the sluggers from SI photos, then and now." Viewers are then treated to "before and after" photos of power hitters Bret Boone, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, and Sammy Sosa, one from several years ago early in their careers and one recent. Now, SI doesn't say they're on steroids. They just post the photos. And, to my knowledge, taking steroids is not now against the rules of baseball, though I have a feeling that it's going to be very soon.

However, the breaking baseball news is that Bonds, Giambi, and Sheffield have just been nailed. Federal investigators have announced that these three players bought steroids. Does this matter? Not in the global scheme of things, but sports are one of the most popular forms of mass entertainment, and the main illusion that fans have is that it really DOES matter whether Barca or Real Madrid comes in first when, of course, it doesn't.

Do players take drugs? Sure they do. It's the market at work. If you make the fans happy by hitting lots of home runs and helping your team win, then the fans love you, every team wants you, and you can sign a multimillion-dollar contract. If you take steroids, your muscles are much bigger, you're much stronger, and you can hit the ball much harder. Now, you have to know how to hit in the first place; steroids aren't going to help you if you can't hit the curveball. but steroids can be the difference between a guy who earns a million bucks a year and a guy who earns eight million.

Health problems? Forget it. These guys are young men with a young men's attitude about their health--party now and don't even think about later. Steroids don't seem to have done these guys any damage yet, as far as we know, and the immediate payoff--take roids, and fame and fortune can be yours now--is enormous compared to the cost--you might die five or ten years earlier, we don't know.

How do you stop it? Very simple. Random mandatory drug testing. If the players don't like it, they can look for a job somewhere else. Part of the payback for those enormous salaries, and I do mean enormous--the highest-paid baseball player, Alex Rodriguez, earns more than $25 million a year, star players get $5-10 million, and in my little town, Kansas City, there are several players (Beltran, Sweeney, Gonzalez, Santiago, maybe Randa) making well more than $2 million a year--is that you have to give up this part of your privacy in order to maintain the fans' illusions. See, if we pretend that sports are really important, then we have to treat them like they are, and one thing we don't allow is any sort of cheating or unfair advantage.

How about Spain? Well, in the last Winter Olympics Spain bought itself a German cross-country skier, Johann Muehlegg, to win us some medals. Muehlegg came through; he won golds in all three cross-country races. Then it hit the fan. He tested positive after the third victory and was disqualified; they've just gotten around to stripping him of the other two medals.

Soccer? Yeah, almost certainly. The Barca admits using creatine as a "nutritional supplement" for its players. That's probably better than what Maradona used to take before games (and at most other times) when he was playing here.

Posted 11:08 by John

Since we're reproducing lists from La Vanguardia today, here's another couple. When looking through these lists, think about this: Where do you think those surveyed are getting their ideas from? Home, school, their peer group, the media, church (ha, ha)? What sort of society produces this set of opinions?

This survey was done more than a year ago by the Barcelona city government. Don't ask me why it took them so long to release it. Those surveyed are "Barcelona young people" between the ages of 15 and 29.

The first question is, "How much confidence (trust) do you have in the following institutions?" The percentages of those who answered "a lot" or "quite a bit" are as follows:

Family 95%
University 79%
NGOs 60%
City government 53%
European Union 45%
Regional government 41%
Catalan parliament 40%
Police 39%
Press 36%
United Nations 34%
Courts 33%
Banks 33%
Monarchy 28%
Spanish parliament 27%
Army 26%
Unions 26%
Central government 23%
NATO 21%
Television 19%
Catholic church 18%
Political parties 10%
US President 7%

Question number two is "How much do you agree with the following concepts?" Not very well-phrased, I don't think. The numbers are those who agree very much or agree quite a bit.

Sexual freedom 93%
Artificial insemination 85%
Disarmament 80%
"Traditions" (presumably castells, sardanas, etc.) 80%
Private property 77%
Homosexuality 75%
Euthanasia 74%
Decriminalization of abortion 73%
European Union 71%
Decriminalization of cannabis 60%
Socialism 59%
Feminism 54%
Catalan autonomy 53%
Nationalism (presumably Catalan) 38%
Catalan independence 33%
Federalism 30%
Capitalism 28%
Communism 27%
Decriminalization of all drugs 22%
Nuclear energy 19%
Death penalty 16%
Human cloning 14%

Posted 10:08 by John

La Vanguardia is kind enough to publish a list of the 48 people killed by ETA since 2000. Here it is.

2000

Jan. 21--Army Lt. Col. Pedro Antonio Blanco Garcia, Madrid.
Feb. 22--Socialist politician Fernando Buesa and regional police officer Jorge Diez Elorza, Vitoria.
May 7--Journalist Jose Luis Lopez de Lacalle, Andoain, Guipuzcoa.
June 4--PP city councilman Jesus Maria Pedrosa Urquiza, Durango, Vizcaya.
July 7--PP city councilman Jose Maria Martin Carpena, Malaga.
July 29--Former civil governor of Guipuzcoa, Juan Maria Jauregui, Tolosa, Guipuzcoa.
August 8--Guipuzcoa employers' association president Jose Maria Korta, Zumaya, Guipuzcoa.
August 9--Army Lieutenant Francisco Casanova Vicente, Berriozar, Navarra.
August 20--Guardias Civiles Irene Fernandez and Jose Angel de Jesus, Sallent de Gallego, Huesca.
August 29--PP city councilman Manuel Indiano, Zumarraga, Guipuzcoa.
Sept. 21--PP city councilman Jose Luis Ruiz Casado, Sant Adria de Besos, Barcelona.
Oct. 9--Judge Luis Portero, Granada.
Oct. 16--Army Col. Antonio Munoz Carinanos, Sevilla.
Oct. 22--Prison employee Maximo Casado Carrera, Vitoria.
Oct. 30--Supreme Court judge Jose Francisco Querol Lombardero, police officer Jesus Escudero Garcia, chauffeur Armando Medina Sanchez, and passer-by Jesus Martinez Sanchez, Madrid.
Nov. 21--Former Health Minister Ernest Lluch, Barcelona.
Dec. 14--PP city councilman Francisco Cano Consuegra, Terrassa, Barcelona.

2001

Jan. 26--Navy cook Ramon Diaz Garcia, San Sebastian.
Feb.22--Workers Josu Leonet Askune and Jose Angel Santos Laranga, San Sebastian.
March 9--Regional policeman Inaki Totorika Vega, Hernani, Guipuzcoa.
March 17--Regional policeman Santos Santamaria Avendano, Roses, Gerona.
March 20--Vice-mayor Froilan Elespe Inciarte, Lasarte-Oria, Guipuzcoa.
May 6--President of Aragonese PP Manuel Gimenez Abad, Zaragoza.
May 24--Newspaper employee Santiago Oleaga Elejabarrieta, San Sebastian.
June 28--Army Gen. Justo Oreja Pedraza, Madrid.
July 10--National policeman Luis Ortiz de la Rosa, Madrid.
July 14--Regional police subchief Mikel Uribe Aurkia and PP city councilman in Leiza Jose Javier Mugica Astibia, Navarra.
Nov. 7--Judge Jose Maria Lidon, Getxo, Vizcaya.
Nov. 23--Regional police officers Ana Isabel Arostegui and Javier Mijangos, Beasain, Guipuzcoa.

2002

March 21--Socialist city councilman Juan Priede Perez, Orio, Guipuzcoa.
Aug. 4--Passers-by Silvia Martinez, aged 6, and Cecilio Gallego Alarias, Santa Pola, Alicante.
Sept. 24--Guardia Civil corporal Juan Carlos Beiro, Leiza, Navarra.
Nov. 17--Guardia Civil Antonio Molina Martin, Madrid.

2003

Feb. 8--Municipal police chief Joseba Pagazaurtundua, Andoain, Guipuzcoa.
May 30--National policemen Bonifacio Martin Hernando and Julian Envit Luna, Sanguesa, Navarra.

Multiple choice question:

The organization that killed these 48 people, ETA, could be best described as:

a) freedom fighters
b) separatist guerrillas
c) nationalist patriots
d) terrorist murderers

If you answered D, you might want to sign the petition demanding that CNN use that very description rather than any of the others.

Posted 12:54 by John

This is kind of interesting for sports fans. Seems that there's going to be an expansion NBA franchise in Charlotte next year, called the Bobcats, since the Hornets skedaddled off to New Orleans. Bernie Bickerstaff, one of their executives, is touring Europe watching basketball games and keeping a blog--well, it's really a diary since he doesn't link to anything. He's in Spain now. Should you want to see how an NBA exec views Europe and European basketball, it's worth a look. It's off NBA.com, so there's nothing too controversial.

Comment: I think this guy Bickerstaff is fairly typical in his attitudes toward Europe, for a reasonably intelligent American business guy. He prefers to accentuate the positive, he admits he doesn't know much and is willing to learn, and he enjoys the differences between Europe and America without being too critical. I'm going to make a generalization here: American business guys who are successful tend to have pretty open minds. Now, there are a hell of a lot of closed-minded business guys, of course, but not many of those guys manage to adapt when the market changes. Ironically, Americans often get slammed for being ignorant of other places; really, I think that Americans who make it in business are those who are willing to accept, adopt, and adapt the best of other systems.

There, that's a pretty good title for a business book: Accept, Adopt, and Adapt; Making It in the New Globalized Business World. If anybody wants to do the writing, all I want in exchange for the title is the same the agent gets. In cash.

As you undoubtedly know, the Americans and French have sent 450 men into Haiti and Aristide has already left for exile. If this is serious, there are going to be a few hundred guys with guns and machetes from both sides sent to Devil's Island or the Dry Tortugas or somewhere nice like that. There are between 500 and 2200, depending on which Spanish source you're referring to, more American marines either on the way or just off the coast. Now, we don't have UN permission or anything for this (quite justified) military takeover of a Third World country in chaos, but nobody seems to be complaining. Except Jesse Jackson. I do not get the attitude of many American black politicians regarding Haiti.

The Guardia Civil, as you also already know, arrested two vans driving down from France in Cuenca. Each van was driven by one guy; they were both arrested. Turned out they were etarras carrying 536 kilos of explosives in van number two, a huge police haul since ETA isn't known to possess a whole lot of weapons anymore and that loss is a big one. The second van was loaded and ready to go; all the etarras had to do was push the button. It seems that ETA is very weak; they simply don't have enough active terrorists to pull off a whole lot of what they're trying to do. These two guys, for example, were rank amateurs.

Angel Acebes, Minister of Justice, said that Pepelu Carod-Rovira must be happy because the bomb was directed at Madrid rather than Catalonia. Everybody else fired away; Pepelu said Acebes was "miserable" and "shameless", Jose Montilla called him "a liar" and "unscrupulous", Perez Rubalcaba called the whole thing "indecent", and so on. I dunno. Looks to me like Carod got exactly what he wanted out of the Perpignan meeting. You don't have to agree with me. But that's what I think.

We had snow flurries here yesterday; it's been chilly for the past week or so. Yippee skippee. That happens every few years around here.

Well, FC Barcelona is legitimately on a roll, with their sixth consecutive win last night, 2-3 against Deportivo in Riazor. Ronaldinho scored twice and Saviola once. Davids and Cocu are doing very well at funneling enemy attacks into the center of the field where they can be easily stopped by Barca's defense. Youth squadder Oleguer looks like he might have won one of the jobs at central defender, along with Marquez, who is now playing up to snuff. This was another solid win against a good team; Barcelona has beaten, consecutively, Atletico Madrid, Valencia, and Depor, none of which is precisely a pushover. Barca is in fourth place on 46 points, only four behind Depor in third and Valencia in second. Madrid, on 59, is unreachable, of course. Second place is, however, a possibility. Trailing Barca are Athletic Bilbao with 41 and Atletico Madrid with 40.