Monday, June 07, 2004

Lessons from Zapatero's Withdrawal from Iraq

Based in Madrid, Carlos Alberto Montaner always hits the nail on the head on his website, including this:
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's new prime minister, sounded the call to retreat with impressive speed. It was the first thing he did when he reached La Moncloa, Spain's government house. 'Tis a pity that haste is never elegant, wrote a tearful poet in love. But Zapatero went farther: he encouraged Dominican President Hipólito Mejía and Honduran President Ricardo Maduro to follow his example.

And — if the information published the Madrid daily La Razón is correct — he secretly asked the Iraqi warriors for a truce so that he could bring the Spanish troops home without placing them at risk in any more battles. …

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So ?

Nous savons tous que les républiquettes d´Amérique Centrale sont allées en Irak emmenées par la main d´Aznar. La récré est finie. Normal que les enfants repartent chez eux avec la même discipline.

Y en a-t-il qui croient que les pays d´Amérique Centrale étaient concernés par la nature du régime irakien ?

Anonymous said...

FoxNews ran a scroll that Mr. Bean's got an 80% approval for bringing the troops home and 60% approval rating as to how things are going in Spain.

Sandy P

Anonymous said...

Yes. Why shouldn't the Spanish Premier do what is popular in Spain? It is a democracy.

I do wish that Spain and all other democratic countries who oppose US involvement in Iraq would hold referenda with this question:
1. If our country is taken over by a corrupt, murdering despot, (Internal or external) who kills us by the thousands, etc. we would reject any military attempt by the US and allies to liberate us. Only if the UN security council gives permission, will we accept our liberation.

Then, the USA could keep these results on file, and, if say, a murdering despot takes over Spain, again, we would just try to work with him, like last time. Maybe the UN security council will send in Nigerian forces to expel the despot and restore order. Who knows, maybe trade links might be the way to go in the future to bring liberty.

That's my fantasy, anyway. To see the USA go back to its non-interventionist foreign policy of the interwar period (1920 to 1939) would be a wonderful thing.

BTW, whose side was Spain on during WWII? (I know. Do you?) For that matter, how many nations were with the USA on D-Day. Damn few.

Aside from the Russians, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and English, the USA fought almost alone against Nazi Germany. I don't count governments in exile or bought or forced allies eg. India in the Asian war against Japan.

In WW II, Spain and Sweden were neutral, although Sweden helped the Nazis early in the war by selling iron ore to them and preventing Swedish territiory from being used by the English to prevent the invasion of Norway. Sweden in fact was very useful to the Nazis, whereas Franco (the Spanish dictator), despite owing his success to Hitler, proved to be of little value to the Nazis. Maybe Franco didn't like Socialists.

Anonymous said...

Forgive me, but what's your point?

Daniel