Iraq
Four Years On:
A Note For Mr Zapatero
By Agustin Velloso
21 April, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Former
Prime Minister Aznar dragged Spain into a war of aggression by the United
States and the United Kingdom against Iraq. Shortly afterwards, his
political party lost the elections thanks to Spain's illegal and damaging
behaviour. But the final account has yet to be squared.
Hundreds of thousands of
dead, millions of refugees, a country wiped out over four years (and
counting) demand that the Azores photo-op be repeated, but this time
with the same actors in the dock before a tribunal for crimes against
humanity.
Prime Minister Zapatero helped
Spain avoid the moral collapse and political and military failure that
the United States has sought out in Iraq. In better keeping with its
international weight and with the old tactic of lighting one candle
for God and another for the devil, he abandoned his predecessor's imperialist
dream and limited himself to proposing to the world an alliance of civilizations
- while sending troops to Afghanistan and Lebanon.
The proposal was withered
before it was born. It is a mystery why his advisers go on drawing salary
despite failing to let him know that a billion Muslims are in no mood
to listen to his conciliatory words when Judaeo-Christian bombs kill
their children daily as they head for school. Nor have speeches on international
peace and aid to the affected peoples helped the troops protect themselves
against the attacks to which they are subject from those very peoples.
Mr Zapatero is in fact more
agreeable than Mr Aznar. Unfortunately, the days are gone when Europeans
could dole out glass necklaces and a Bible to the inferior races while
they stole their riches and turned them into slaves. Bad luck. You did
try. But Westerners can no longer do what they like with the disinherited
of the earth, with or without UN authorization, mostly because that
organization no longer enjoys credibility with them.
Please, don't misunderstand
me, nor abandon your gifts as a communicator. You are going to need
them. Europe's Presidents now have to explain to their citizens that
their armies and multinational businesses have been killing, despoiling
and destroying Arab and Muslim countries for years, both directly and
also via their support for Israel in its genocide against the Palestinians.
Those citizens have been
deceived, something that cannot go on cost-free for ever. Some few individuals,
outraged at this unwanted imperialist policy, apparently handed down
from God to Bush, chief of the crusader armies, are opening people's
eyes via bombings. It could hardly be any other way : who lives by the
sword dies by it.
Things are not going well
and could turn much worse, but perhaps it may be possible to learn something:
each attack hands back to the imperialists their own earlier attacks
and humanizes the aggressors by making them suffer the same grief as
their victims. Were it not for that vengeance, the West would go on
producing victims indefinitely. That is what the endless war on terror
brings.
translation copyleft by Tortilla
Con Sal
Agustin Velloso
UNED-Facultad de Educación
Dpto. Hª de la Educ. y Educ. Comparada
Paseo Senda del Rey, nº 7
28040-Madrid (ESPAÑA)
Tlfno.: 91-398.69.93
E-mail: [email protected]
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