{"id":175,"date":"2004-03-15T16:42:46","date_gmt":"2004-03-15T21:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=175"},"modified":"2005-12-10T17:22:17","modified_gmt":"2005-12-10T22:22:17","slug":"homage-to-catatonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/homage-to-catatonia","title":{"rendered":"Homage to Catatonia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looks like I was wrong in We Stand Together<\/a>. The Spanish electorate has spoken, and it’s voted in the socialist party, which plans to withdraw troops from Iraq.<\/p>\n

Evidently, the Al Qaeda connection to the Madrid bombings has left the public with little taste for foreign involvement. This, of course, is part of what Al Qaeda seems to want, and what they expected of the U.S. following 9.11. I think the leadership was operating under the Black Hawk Down<\/em> model, where America would withdraw from conflict as soon as it saw its soldiers in bodybags.<\/p>\n

I’m still trying to parse the logic of the left-wing voters in Spain, though. After all, the big outcry against the war in Iraq is that Bush and Blair lied to the world about a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. So, let’s assume that the attacks in Madrid were<\/em> conducted by Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

If the attack was conducted in response to Spain’s involvement in the war, then it would seem that there is<\/em> a connection between those two groups, and that the left’s complaints are incorrect. The war, then, was<\/em> justified to smash a national base for terrorists.<\/p>\n

And if Al Qaeda doesn’t<\/em> have any interest in “avenging” Spanish involvement in Iraq, then the left’s vote against the conservative government makes no sense. Which is to say, the vote for the socialist party smells like appeasement to me. And it makes less sense particularly for Spain, considering Bin Laden’s comments about wanting to restore the Caliphate (which would, y’know, involve taking over Spain).<\/p>\n

I have a lot more that I’d like to write\/discuss about this subject, but I have a lot of work to do at the day job (conference all week in New York), so I’m going to have to cut this short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looks like I was wrong in We Stand Together. The Spanish electorate has spoken, and it’s voted in the socialist party, which plans to withdraw troops from Iraq. Evidently, the Al Qaeda connection to the Madrid bombings has left the public with little taste for foreign involvement. This, of course, is part of what Al … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Homage to Catatonia”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-2P","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":176,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/we-stand-together","url_meta":{"origin":175,"position":0},"title":"We stand together","author":"Gil","date":"March 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Went to the Spanish Consulate in New York yesterday to bring flowers as a memorial for the victims of the Madrid bombings. Credit to Instapundit for suggesting the idea on his site. Picture of the memorial below. There wasn't much there, as you can see; the Spanish embassy in Washington\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4367,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/outsourcing-is-a-hit","url_meta":{"origin":175,"position":1},"title":"Outsourcing is a Hit!","author":"Gil","date":"August 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Three weeks ago, I wrote about CIA Director Leon Panetta's \"I'm not here to talk about the past\" op-ed piece, in which the agency was just following orders for the previous 8 years. Mr. Panetta was writing because of an uproar over a secret \"jihadist\" assassination program that had been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":740,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/update","url_meta":{"origin":175,"position":2},"title":"Update","author":"Gil","date":"November 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry to be outta touch, dear readers! The internet connection at the hotel is dodgier than I thought. Plus, I've been working at the conference and then dining with clients in the evenings.But the conference is all over, so it's time for sightseeing and souvenir-shopping! Pictures will come when I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Madrid"","block_context":{"text":"Madrid","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/madrid"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":712,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-new-year-3","url_meta":{"origin":175,"position":3},"title":"Happy New Year!","author":"Gil","date":"October 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks for sticking around, dear reader! I just wrapped up the October ish, just in time for the Jewy New Year! Shana tova!Sorry I haven't written much lately. There were plenty of things I could've written about, like these two items:Al Qaeda or Al Capone?What is up with all these\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":671,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/mad-about-madrid","url_meta":{"origin":175,"position":4},"title":"Mad About Madrid","author":"Gil","date":"October 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Went a-walkin' for a few hours, down to Atocha station and that modern art museum. Took more wonderful pix, but you'll have to wait, unless I can get my Flickr account up and running one evening.I spent time with the Picassos, Miros, and the Dalis, but the postwar painters left\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Madrid"","block_context":{"text":"Madrid","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/madrid"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":718,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/get-your-flick-on","url_meta":{"origin":175,"position":5},"title":"Get Your Flick On","author":"Gil","date":"November 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Figured out Flickr this morning, and posted a bunch of pix from that Madrid trip. Enjoy.","rel":"","context":"In "Madrid"","block_context":{"text":"Madrid","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/madrid"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}