Spain's Zapatero: Another Compassionate Leftist's Welfare Heroics Prove to Hide a World of Scamming, One of Hardly Believable Magnitude

It turns out that another one of Europe's patented humanists, a compassionate leftist who doubled as a valiant foe of ths United States, proves to be little more than a scammer, one of hardly believable (i.e., of criminal) magnitude (gracias a la Señora Sarah Hoyt de Instapundit). Washington Examiner's Jose Lev Alvarez breaks the story:

Spain’s National Court made history last week by placing former Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero under investigation for allegedly leading a criminal network engaged in influence peddling, money laundering, document forgery, and related offenses. 

(Filed in the Rules for thee, but not for me department.) Do you remember how Zapatero won his (dubious) victory as prime minister in the first place? Besides a horrific terrorist action that killed or injured 2600 people, anti-Americanism — and betrayal of the White House (in time of war) — was central to the socialist's victory (details below).

 … Investigators are also examining alleged links to Venezuelan regime money tied to PDVSA oil schemes and the CLAP food program, whose corruption devastated ordinary Venezuelans. … This scandal reveals Zapatero as one of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s most valuable international assets. 

 

 … Zapatero’s alleged ownership [of the Orinoco Mining Arc gold mine] implicates him in [an] ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. 

 

 … As prime minister, Zapatero supplied Iran with dual-use technology and authorized Spain’s largest-ever arms export 

 

 … The scandal indicts Spain’s Socialist establishment. As Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government faces its own corruption controversies, Zapatero’s exposure underscores how “dialogue” and “progressive” internationalism [not to mention heroic anti-Americanism] can conceal both personal enrichment and willful blindness to dictatorship. 

I often say that the dream of the world's leftists is to make a world where all citizens are de facto welfare recipients (an update from the serfs and the peasants that they used to be during feudalism and in prior eras). 

 

This, far from incidentally, in turn explains why there is so much anti-Americanism in the world, since statists in the United States as well as in the rest of the world are enraged that Americans (i.e., common citizens) made a rich and successful country with the minimal involvement of politicians and bureaucrats — and not only that but indeed made it the richest and the most successful country on the planet.

 

Spain — and "the mafia that governs" the country  — provides one heck of a perfect example of that. Recall how Zapatero became Spain's prime minister in the first place. In August 2004 (most 2004 hyperlinks now broken), the International Herald Tribune's John Vinocur went back over his (dubious) victory while characterizing the mindset of the European press perfectly: "its logic running that since intelligent Europe hates [George W Bush] so, how could any decent, non-fascistic American contemplate voting Republican?"

• José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, says he does not want to talk about Islamic terrorism. … "I never talk about Islamic terrorism, but international terrorism," Zapatero told Le Monde in an interview marking his first 100 days in office.

A couple of background details enter here. Zapatero's Socialists got elected in March after a murderous Madrid railway station bombing that was undoubtedly planned by Islamic terrorists to affect the election's outcome. An extreme long shot before the attack, the Socialists had campaigned on the theme that Spain would pay for José María Aznar's backing of the United States in Iraq. …

A bit like newspapers that avoid the word "cancer" in obituaries with the explanation that they are sparing sensitive readers, [the secularist] Zapatero is keeping Islamic fundamentalists out of the discussion of terrorism because, he says, Islam is a religion with hundreds of millions of followers "which, like all the religions in the history of humanity, involves an element of religious fanaticism."

The IHT's John Vinocur went on to describe Zapatero's first actions when the new PM reached La Moncloa, Spain's government house.

The detoxed Spain of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, it was pledged, was going to rush back into the family-like warmth of the European Union, and rush home its troops from Iraq. In a whoosh, it would rejoin the community of the just, and end what the new Socialist government called the country's miscast role as superpower-adjunct of the Americans.

Promise keepers, the new guys did what they said they would in their first full week on the job. For which they got something short of an international standing ovation.

Four years after his defeat, the incumbent José Maria Aznar, a vibrant supporter of Bush, had the following to say about the 2004 elections:

Frankly, the left exploited this tragedy. … All the polls were clear: without these attacks, which the left capitalized on, we would have won the elections. What's terrible is that instead of blaming the terrorists, they blamed the government! 

 

 … every day, it becomes clearer that the terrorists achieved their objective: to manipulate the electoral process. This is a crucial point for all democracies to consider—insofar as this phenomenon risks recurring. The decision to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq, which was made in violation of Spain's international commitments and the promises Mr. Zapatero himself had made during the election campaign, was considered by the terrorists to be a significant victory. And when terrorists achieve a victory, they become stronger… 

 

If you ask me if Chamberlain resembles Zapatero, I would answer… that Chamberlain had more depth and even more courage than Zapatero! Indeed, after having collaborated with the Nazis, Chamberlain, at least, had the courage to leave with dignity. 

By standing up to the accursed Republican in the White House, Zapo, also known as Bambi and (on this blog) as El Zap and el caniche de Chiraque, was described as a totemic figure for the Spanish left, who, like his successor Pedro Sánchez, was/is hailed as a humanist champion, another paladin in Europe's pantheon of heroes giving lessons on civility and compassion and peace-making and humanity to America's neanderthals.

 

But also to Europe's neanderthals, it turns out: Likewise blinded to any problematics associated with Islam, Pedro Sánchez (following in the footsteps of Tony Blair and duly lionized in the New York Times for being "Trump's nemesis") has allowed half a million illegal aliens in Spain, many of them Muslims, to become regularized. At a Podemos party rally in Zaragoza, to "chilling" applause, a drama queen like Irene Montero bellowed at the top of her lungs: 

“We have obtained papers and regularization. And now we are going to go for citizenship or change the law so that they can vote, of course. Hopefully, replacement theory, hopefully we can rid this country of fascists and racists with migrants, with working people.”  

Cross the Atlantic: As California and other states seem to be heading in the direction of fraud-soaked Minnesota (the home for many Scandinavian immigrants in the 19th century), it appears that the various welfare systems throughout the American nation might be little more than a scam.

But for the statists, American and foreign alike — whether they turn out to be true believers or hypocritical conspirators — the international situation is far worse than that.

In view of the fact that the global left's major talking point — that leftists like the Democrats and all the Socialist-leaning Europeans — are far more tolerant and compassionate than the egotistical brutes in the capitalistic United States (or, at least, then the neanderthals of America's Republican Party), it would be highly problematic if the welfare systems throughout the rest of the West — and the rest of the world — proved to be a scam as well.

That is what might be happening in the region — Scandinavia — whose countries are often lauded as the very top model of a healthy government and a healthy nation. Certainly, Norway's reputation for honesty and humility, for good governance, and for “least corrupt in the world” rankings has been taking broadside after broadside in the wake of the Epstein Scandal.

And if Norway turns out to be so filled with (for want of a better word) corruption, can Sweden and Denmark be far behind?

 

At this point, a final question that comes to mind is: What is the international left (not excluding America's Democratic Party) if not a cult of irresponsibility filled with drama queens, Sophomoric Teens, Intrepid Cosplayers, and Would-Be Heroes?

More Details at: Scandalous News from Norway: What If All the Planet's Welfare Systems — Supposedly Proof of the Left's Superiority Over Capitalist America — Prove to Be Little More Than So Many Scams? including 

Rebecca Mistereggen

's stunning article titled The Habitus of Norway’s Elite: Lies, Corruption, and the Absence of Consequences.