Misery

[louiselux]

Whoever planted those bombs in Madrid, there can never be any justification for such acts. Watching the dead and injured toll rise from the first reports until now is horrific, and shattering. My heart goes out to anyone who has been affected by this - to a whole country. Reports and analysis of the attacks are here, here and here, more comment here

Comments

[rochefort.livejournal.com]

I agree completely -- no cause can ever, ever justify something like that.

There's one thing I can't understand, though: why, right from the off, did the Spanish government insist it was ETA? I remember when the IRA used to bomb here, the government never came right out and said it straight away -- it was always 'assumed to be the work of the Provos'. I found that immediate assumption in Madrid very odd indeed. The pattern of 'etiquette' was completely contrary to the way ETA normally behaves, and they're also left-wingers -- whatever else one thinks of their tactics, blowing up working people isn't their style.

Even now, when the Americans and everyone else is assuming it's Al-Qaida, the Spanish government is still refusing to let go of its pet theory. I would have said, it's because the government is right-wing and they've got a general election coming up on Sunday, and blaming ETA might get them some emotional rebound votes. But even El País, their Guardian equivalent, was blaming ETA, which suggests there's something in the Spanish mindset that I'm not getting.

The Catalan fans didn't exactly do themselves any favours at Celtic Park in Barcelona's match last night, btw -- they were cat-calling and shouting obnoxious remarks during the minute's silence.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

From what I've read, the reason for blaming Eta at the moment rests on recent discoveries (10 days ago) of a van containing a large amount of explosives - driven by Eta members, and evidence that the explosive used in yesterday's bombing was the same type as Eta have used before. I'm sure it rests on more than that, and maybe a part of that is a willingness to believe it is Eta. To me, that fact that the atrocity occurred just before the general election makes me think it was carried out by a group who had a vested interest in the status quo.

The Catalan fans didn't exactly do themselves any favours at Celtic Park in Barcelona's match last night, btw -- they were cat-calling and shouting obnoxious remarks during the minute's silence.

That's very depressing to hear - vile behaviour.

[rochefort.livejournal.com]

To me, that fact that the atrocity occurred just before the general election makes me think it was carried out by a group who had a vested interest in the status quo.

Yes, this is what I thought -- who would gain something from that attack? Obviously not ETA -- they may be murderous but they're not stupid. Who does that leave? I can't think of anyone other than Al-Qaida and the Partido Popular. Among the blanket news coverage yesterday I heard one defence commentator use the term 'military precision' about the attacks, which was pretty chilling. I wondered if he had used it on purpose.