Spain shows bitter divide with anit war pukes in charge

Washington Post:

Twenty-nine suspects went on trial Thursday for the March 11, 2004, bombings of four commuter trains in Madrid, but Spain's political parties and news media have turned the investigation of the attack into a partisan battle, fraying the country's traditional solidarity against terrorism and leaving Spaniards bitterly divided over who launched the attack and why.

The strongest evidence collected by investigators suggests that the bombings -- which killed 191 people and injured 1,824 in the worst terrorist attack ever carried out in continental Europe -- were the work of Islamic radicals inspired by al-Qaeda, principally in retaliation for the stationing of Spanish troops in Iraq.

But leaders of the conservative Popular Party continue to assert that the Basque separatist movement known as ETA had a central role in the bombings. Some independent terrorism experts accuse the Popular Party -- in power at the time of the attack and voted out of office in national elections three days later -- of spinning conspiracy theories to escape blame for the bombings and redeem itself with the public.

"The main success of the bombing was to introduce a deeply rooted division in the country, socially and politically, which is amazing in a country that had a history of being united against terror before March 11," said Fernando Reinares, an international terrorism expert at Madrid's Elcano Royal Institute. "After March 11, Spain started a blame game that is unending."

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The bombings became politically charged almost immediately. On the day of the blasts, the government of Prime Minister José María Aznar said ETA was the prime suspect and repeated that assertion even as evidence mounted that Islamic extremists had carried out the attack.

When Spaniards went to the polls three days later, political analysts say, they voted against the Popular Party government not so much for pursuing policies that might have led to the attack -- such as sending Spanish troops to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- as for seemingly trying to cover up the role of Islamic extremists. Aznar's successor, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the Socialist Workers' Party, pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq soon after taking office, and today Popular Party leaders accuse the Socialists of ignoring key evidence pointing to ETA involvement.

The right-wing El Mundo newspaper, in particular, has conducted aggressive investigations fueling charges of coverups and evidence-tampering that the newspaper's editorial page said showed "intentional deceit" by government investigators. Surveys show that as many as a third of Spaniards believe ETA played a role in the bombings.

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This is what happens when left wing phony anti war pukes use the war to divide a country. They get division when they take power. It is hard to respect the Socialist who awarded al Qaeda for killings in Spain, by pulling its troops from the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq. Democrats are going to reap the same whirlwind if they pull US forces from Iraq before the enemy is defeated. Retreat is not a winning strategy. In Spain it has won a bitter divide. The Socialist cowards will just have to live with it until they can be defeated at the polls.