Spanish Prime Minister Deplored Fighting Against Saddahm
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| Europe |
| Spanish troops return home with regrets |
| 2004-05-10 |
| by Charles Sennett Boston Globe (link is to IHT publication). Hat tip: Brothers Judd. EFL. Last week, Spanish soldiers hastily withdrawn from service in Iraq by the newly elected government of Prime Minister José Luis RodrÃÂguez ("El Conejo") Zapatero returned to the sprawling military base here and a welcome home ceremony. A sign at the base entrance read, "Todo por la patria," or "All for the Country." It should have read: ¡Osama, hicimos lo que usted nos preguntó! But many of the soldiers said they were having a hard time mustering much pride about their homecoming, and they were anything but triumphant in their return to a country where the vast majority opposed the Iraq war. They certainly don’t see themselves as conquerors, and they aren’t returning with riches. "It didn’t really feel like that much of a homecoming for us. It felt more like a political celebration for Zapatero and those who never wanted us there in the first place," said Manuel Garcia, 31, a sergeant in a brigade that was among the entire Spanish contingent of 1,300 troops ordered home. "We felt like a used car being passed from one owner to the next," said Felipe Collado, 30, also a sergeant in the Plus Ultra II brigade, which arrived home Wednesday to a ceremony attended by Zapatero, his defense minister, and the top brass. The soldiers returned to a nation still traumatized, and in many ways transformed, by the horrific March 11 train bombings by Islamic terrorists and the bitterly divisive national election held just three days after the attack. . . "We should have stayed and finished our mission," said José Francisco Casteneda, 29, who was among four sergeants who had gathered at a local restaurant Thursday - sharing newly developed snapshots of their time in Iraq. The soldiers grumbled about what they viewed as the staged homecoming. They said that on the day they arrived, they were not given a rest but put through a training exercise for the ceremony the following morning. They said that many fellow soldiers, who had come back in the earlier wave of troop charters back home, were on vacations with their families when they were ordered back to base for the ceremony. The television footage of the ceremony shows Zapatero resplendent in a white chicken-feather coat with a yellow streak down the back flashing a broad smile that political cartoonists love to lampoon. The soldiers said they couldn’t hide their disappointment that the prime minister did not directly address them and left it to the defense minister, José Bono. "A lot of us were wondering, ’Who is this parade for anyway?’" Collado asked. Cesar Royo, 29, a communications specialist for the brigade who had just returned to his bride, said he was among more than 90 percent of Spaniards who surveys suggest were against the invasion and Aznar’s decision to send troops to support the effort. But Royo also said he came away from his experience with a sense that the Spanish troops had something important to contribute, and he felt their mission was cut short in a way that smells of retreat and feels less than noble. That’s because it was less than noble. Spain, at least under the present government, does not deserve her soldiers. As Admiral Cervera said as the first shots were fired at Santiago in 1898, ¡España Pobre! ("Poor Spain!"). |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #16 Politico, are you old enough to be one of those morally superior beings who told us that the Khmer Rouge and the Pathet Lao were noble freedom fighters when we were finding our downed pilots in their areas with their Geneva Convention cards nailed to their foreheads and their balls stuffed in their mouths? Those people who didn't change their opinions about these bastards until the North Vietnamese had a tiff with PhnomPen and declared the Khmer Rouge evil? Who then suddenly discovered and were all atwitter about the killing fields that you previously refused to acknowledge? One of those cocktail party twits who revel in their sense of moral superiority over the people who keep you safe? Well, people like you who never peek out of your snug cocoon paid for in other people's blood don't understand that there is evil in the world. There are people out there who would happily kill you and me and everybody we know or have ever met just for fun. You should get down on your hands and knees every night to thank God (or whatever power you acknowledge) that there are men like George Bush who recognize the evil and are willing to do what must be done to keep it from our shores and especially thank God that there are young men and women who don't think as you do and are willing to risk their lives in the armed forces of this country to protect you from the things lurking just beyond the darkness. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-05-10 10:37:36 PM |
| #15 The best way to 'end' a war is to win it. Amen to that Rawsnacks. Thank God for President Bush, don't you agree? |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-05-10 9:47:03 PM |
| #14 I won't argue with the sentiment, but I must hone the language: Right now Kerry is playing to sentiments about the war by saying he was a war hero but when he came home he worked to end the war. More precisely: he worked to lose the war. The best way to 'end' a war is to win it. |
| Posted by: Rawsnacks 2004-05-10 9:40:45 PM |
| #13 Same thing is true now, we need to end Bush's war now. At the expense of the loss of lives in future terrorist attacks (even possibly yours)? Sorry, but that's absolutely unacceptable. If we're going to do something, then it's preferable that the job be done right the first time. Shortsightedness such as yours is something that we DON'T need. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-05-10 9:11:12 PM |
| #12 Politico, Here it is. You're an idiot. We didn't start the war, we are finishing it. |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-05-10 8:42:24 PM |
| #11 Badanov, politics is politics man. The V war was wrong and the price to end it was high. Same thing is true now, we need to end Bush's war now. The truth hurts, but the American people must here it, and they will make the right decision - dump Bush. |
| Posted by: Politico 2004-05-10 8:17:06 PM |
| #10 I will never forget nor forgive people like John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and the rest of the "noble anti-war" activists. Neither will I forget nor forgive groups like the Quakers in Philadelphia who held blood drives for our enemies, the NVA. If there is such a thing as a blood curse, then it's on them. And that is eactly why the pressure must remain in Kerry for the choices he made when he left Viet Nam. Right now Kerry is playing to sentiments about the war by saying he was a war hero but when he came home he worked to end the war. Nice spin to what he actually did, isn't it? Does Kerry really think he can get away with glossing over the fact he was so opposed to the war he was willing to use enemy propoganda against those still in the fight, was willing to hurt troop morale, was willing to endanger those in the war zone, and was all too willing to enable the NVA to stay in the fight long after it should have sued for peace or surrender. Kerry can't be allowed to get away with it.. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-05-10 7:54:19 PM |
| #9 Garrison, what I meant is that watching those helicopters lifting off the from the embassy and then being pushed over the side of the carriers was a kick in the gut for those of us who had served. What do you think would have happened to those NVA tank columns if our government could have mustered the political will to use the B52s still at Andersen and the carriers still in the region? There is a sick feeling that you get when the people and the government you serve make you standby and watch erstwhile allies fight and die alone. The Spanish military's humiliation will be orders of magnitude less because the effect of their departure will not significantly affect the outcome. Living on the West Coast where there are lots of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, etc., it;s hard to forget the results of our politically mandated standdown. I will never forget nor forgive people like John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and the rest of the "noble anti-war" activists. Neither will I forget nor forgive groups like the Quakers in Philadelphia who held blood drives for our enemies, the NVA. If there is such a thing as a blood curse, then it's on them. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-05-10 5:31:31 PM |
| #8 That's the bitter taste of that I remember from my onetime membership to the forever shrinking Clinton military. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-05-10 4:36:09 PM |
| #7 "We felt like a used car being passed from one owner to the next," said Felipe Collado, 30, also a sergeant in the Plus Ultra II brigade, which arrived home Wednesday to a ceremony attended by Zapatero, his defense minister, and the top brass. "We should have stayed and finished our mission," said José Francisco Casteneda, 29, who was among four sergeants who had gathered at a local restaurant Thursday - sharing newly developed snapshots of their time in Iraq. The soldiers said they couldn’t hide their disappointment that the prime minister did not directly address them and left it to the defense minister, José Bono. "A lot of us were wondering, ’Who is this parade for anyway?’" Collado asked. For the large part, those Spanish soldiers have little to be ashamed of. They served while their cowardly politicians demanded that they tuck their tails and run. Spain's repute as a world power of even the least sort should bear this stigma for decades to come. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-10 4:15:50 PM |
| #6 I think TWV is relating to the mind set of the soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors who returned and thought they had outfight the enemy only to be kerried at home. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-05-10 3:44:14 PM |
| #5 RWV: Not as bad as Viet Nam...What the fuck is that supposed to mean? The US military held back Communist North Vietnamese invaders and South Vietnamese collaborators for better than 15 years at great costs to this nation, and left honorably in 1973 due to a negotiated armistice the COMMUNISTS violated in 1975 -- long after the US military forces had been redeployed. The evacuation of diplomatic and other civilian personnel from Vietnam in 1975 in no way, shape or form was worse than or even remotely related to the Zapatero-ordered retreat of Spanish forces after less than a year of peacekeeping in Iraq. |
| Posted by: Garrison 2004-05-10 3:14:43 PM |
| #4 ..and he felt their mission was cut short in a way that smells of retreat and feels less than noble. To say that the Spanish troops' recall by Zapatero smells of retreat is like saying that a bloated corpse is emitting a slight odor. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-05-10 12:49:29 PM |
| #3 Well Spain IS next to France. Maybe the "We Surender" personality is rubbing off on them...French... |
| Posted by: Val 2004-05-10 12:29:30 PM |
| #2 Prime Minister José Luis RodrÃÂguez ("El Conejo") Zapatero
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| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-10 11:29:26 AM |
| #1 Not as bad as Viet Nam in 75, but it still can't feel good. "We felt like a used car being passed from one owner to the next," and an unappreciated used car at that. This is what happens when a democracy loses its moral center. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-05-10 11:18:23 AM |