Chavez and Zapatero: Two peas in a socialist podNot content to abandon her allies in combating global terrorism, Spain is now selling military hardware to Venezuela. According to Waller:
Until two years ago, Spain was a staunch ally in the global war on terrorists and their supporters. Most observers expected Spain's pro-U.S. government to win re-election until the al-Qaida bombings of the Madrid transit system propelled the Socialist Workers Party to power.
In one of his first acts in office, after pledging to pull Spain from the Iraq coalition, President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero flew to Venezuela to sell military patrol boats and CASA CN-235 transport planes to the dictator Chavez.
After failing to persuade Spain not to make the sale, the Bush administration invoked a law allowing the US to veto the sale of any arms containing US-made parts. No problema, said Spain. They pulled the US parts and made the sale.
And as if that wasn't enough, Spain and Venezuela "conspired to rub it in America's face abroad, while CASA lobbied in Washington for U.S. tax dollars." To wit:
Last November, after CASA lobbyists had gotten Congress
to spend $68 million on the first Coast Guard CN-235s, Spanish Defense Minister Jose Bono flew to Caracas "to stress what [Chavez] described as a 'defeat' of the United States," according to the major Madrid daily El Pais. In Caracas, Bono publicly criticized the United States as an "empire" as he stood with Chavez, who praised Spain for "confronting the hegemonic and imperialistic ambitions of the elite that now governs the United States [and is] massacring the people
of Iraq." While Chavez celebrated the deal with the Spanish defense minister, he refused entry to a bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation that had been cleared to visit Venezuela. In an act orchestrated to humiliate Congress, Chavez forced the lawmakers (led by 81-year-old House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill.) to sit in their plane for two hours without being allowed to disembark. Chavez then ordered the congressmen expelled from the country.
This behavior from a supposed ally of the US is outrageous, and any member of congress who votes to authorize the purchase of even a single olive from Spain should be voted out of office.
3 comments:
Well, I am Spanish and cannot be more in disagreement with my government. But the worst is yet to come.
Although you, in the US, cannot know how we lived the last two years of Aznar's Government. Imagine a country in which Michael Moore -or his equivalent- was the most valued TV anchorman, George Clooney the most solicited political advisor, and Susan Sarandon the modern woman.
Then we have the assaults to the PP offices, with no regards to damages, the insults of "assasins" and "murderers" to Aznar and MPs from PP, and lastly the bombings.
And now we know that were more that mere lacks of dilligence in the police forces regarding March 11th bombings. In fact, the criminal process has shown there were false proofs given to the Judge, different explosives in the trains and on the bags shown to the police, the suicide guys from Leganés were probably "suicided", etc. That does not mean ETA did something but there were a lot of people of the State (Intelligence, Police, etc) that, at the least, did not do their work.
Anyway, I do not see a very good future for Spain: between the ETA-Zapatero negotiation, the lack of a reasonable policy about inmigration and the Islamists we are lost and doomed.
There are some friends of mine that are going to emigrate. So this is not a problem ONLY of selling airplanes to Venzuela. It's much more profound and I am very pessimistic. I really do think the first ones who this Government has commited traison to are us. But we cannot boycott the Government. So you are lucky but only think that all Spanish people are not like Zapatero. Just as Michael Moore, James Carter or Tim Robbins are Americans.
Oh, and think that people like Almodóvar, Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz and so on were totally against the war and Allied forces in Iraq and took part in anti-war demonstrations. Javier Bardem is member of a group Culture against the War, who even denounced Aznar before the International Criminal Court because of Iraqi War and are calling Bush, in particular, and Americans, in general, murderers. Just remember that next time someone intends you to go to a film they are acting in.
Sorry for the long comment anyway.
On the contrary--thank you for the long comment.
I hope you're wrong about the future of Spain, but I agree it's not looking good.
Agreed, Zapatero is a loon. With uncontrolled immigration across the Strait of Gibraltar things are only going to get much worse. Such a shame because otherwise Spain is a great country. They need a strong leader.
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