Adios Aznar - Message from Spain
valery | 29.04.2003 02:47
"In a preview of the sort of anti-American stance a left-wing government might take, PSOE leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero criticized Aznar before parliament in March. "[Y]ou are determined to strike whatever happens, invade Iraq, change the political regime, turn it into a country and a territory under the superpower's orders, all outside international law and the authorization of the United Nations," he said."
Adios Aznar
No one expects the Spanish left -- but here it comes.
By Asher Price
Web Exclusive: 4.23.03
This item describes how one of the "coalition of the Willing" (where 90% of the popoulation was unwilling) is about to say "Adios" to Poodler Aznar.
Begins.........
SEVILLE, SPAIN -- Spanish soldiers stationed in the Gulf may make up only a negligible percentage of allied forces in the region -- but their presence is anything but token as far as Spanish voters are concerned. That's because among the "Coalition of the Willing," the Spanish are the most unwilling. Even as the war has effectively come to a close, the political fallout from the Spanish government's unpopular alliance with the United States is threatening to put the left back in power for the first time since 1996. And that could move the Spanish government out of the ranks of those European countries that have cast their foreign-policy lots with the United States.
In Britain popular opinion -- which had been against the war -- flip-flopped once the fighting began. Not so in Spain, where the public continues to think the invasion was ill-conceived. In a poll conducted after the Iraq War began by El Pais, Spain's leading newspaper, 91 percent of Spaniards said they were against the war. And on the same weekend that George W. Bush finally announced that Iraqis are "free, and freedom is beautiful," I witnessed a raucous demonstration in Granada where protesters called for Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose María Aznar to be tried as war criminals.
The war has politically reinvigorated the country as a whole, and especially this southern region called Andalucía, which lies far from the traditional power centers of Madrid and Barcelona.
In Seville, Spain's fourth largest city and Andalucía's grandest, the war and its aftermath have become the main objects of conversation, much of it one-sided. People here are uniformly against it. Not self-righteously so, but simply as a matter of fact. And for them it is a fact worth announcing. Hanging in bus stations, from clotheslines and at soccer stadiums are "No a la guerra!" signs. "Dinero," "Petroleo" and "Guerra de Papa Bush" are the ulterior motives many Sevillanos suspect were behind the war. ..............."
Go to
http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/04/price-a-04-23.html for the full story.
No one expects the Spanish left -- but here it comes.
By Asher Price
Web Exclusive: 4.23.03
This item describes how one of the "coalition of the Willing" (where 90% of the popoulation was unwilling) is about to say "Adios" to Poodler Aznar.
Begins.........
SEVILLE, SPAIN -- Spanish soldiers stationed in the Gulf may make up only a negligible percentage of allied forces in the region -- but their presence is anything but token as far as Spanish voters are concerned. That's because among the "Coalition of the Willing," the Spanish are the most unwilling. Even as the war has effectively come to a close, the political fallout from the Spanish government's unpopular alliance with the United States is threatening to put the left back in power for the first time since 1996. And that could move the Spanish government out of the ranks of those European countries that have cast their foreign-policy lots with the United States.
In Britain popular opinion -- which had been against the war -- flip-flopped once the fighting began. Not so in Spain, where the public continues to think the invasion was ill-conceived. In a poll conducted after the Iraq War began by El Pais, Spain's leading newspaper, 91 percent of Spaniards said they were against the war. And on the same weekend that George W. Bush finally announced that Iraqis are "free, and freedom is beautiful," I witnessed a raucous demonstration in Granada where protesters called for Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose María Aznar to be tried as war criminals.
The war has politically reinvigorated the country as a whole, and especially this southern region called Andalucía, which lies far from the traditional power centers of Madrid and Barcelona.
In Seville, Spain's fourth largest city and Andalucía's grandest, the war and its aftermath have become the main objects of conversation, much of it one-sided. People here are uniformly against it. Not self-righteously so, but simply as a matter of fact. And for them it is a fact worth announcing. Hanging in bus stations, from clotheslines and at soccer stadiums are "No a la guerra!" signs. "Dinero," "Petroleo" and "Guerra de Papa Bush" are the ulterior motives many Sevillanos suspect were behind the war. ..............."
Go to
http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/04/price-a-04-23.html for the full story.
valery
Homepage:
http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/04/price-a-04-23.html
