Spain's Support for the U.S.

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

why did Spain start supporting us in the war against Iraq?

2

That’s odd because US business (not government) supported General Franco, Ford supplied him with motors.

3

no, Spain’s intergration in the three war mungers, is more to do with there financal stance in the EU. British tourists, bulster up the Spainish economist needs, enough so they have nice stable growth. Spain, Britian, Denmark, Italy and Sweden were all in favour of the war; the meeting on that Island was Bush putting a big Hollywood style show on, to state it was a Euro&US thing. Plus it annoyed the greatest nation on earth - the French.

4

Kesh i hate to tell you but spain has been envolved the whole time.
Rewind your tv and look for that meeting they had in europe right before the war dec.

5

Yea thats what im going on about, i didnt agree with metavoids business thing.

United States took steps to cut off financing for the Batasuna organization because of its ties to the ETA. Batasuna, which demands independence for the Basque region of northern Spain and southwestern France, was outlawed by the Spanish supreme court in March.

Remember in the meeting, with Bush & Blair in europe – Aznar would not comment, when asked whether the blacklisting of Batasuna was a quid pro quo for Spain’s strong support of the U.S.-led war on Iraq. He said
“an example of real, material collaboration in the fight against terrorism, and that’s the most important thing.” - which Spain didnt do. The US bought Spains vote as with everyone else.

6

Greetings!

Again, and first of all, excuse my bad english please! :blush:

I am from Galicia (Spain), so i think that I can give a different point of view - not better, not worst, just different -

Maybe I am misunderstanding you - again my poor english, sorry -, but Do you mean that spanish goverment supported US in exchange to collaboration against Basque terrorism? In my opinion this is not correct. US can do almost nothing against Basque terrorism. By the other hand, the black listing of Batasune is not reason enough to support a war.

So… again the same question. Which was the reason? Here is my opinion.

  1. Ideological reasons: I think that Bush and Aznar’s goverments fit in a ideological way.

  2. Getting Important: Last centuries Spain was not an important country in Europe. Even when Spanish economy and wealth growth a lot in the last decade or two decades, it didn´t growth politically in Europe. In my opinion, supporting US and Britain, Aznar´s goverment get boosted at an international level. Spain has almost not voice in the United Nations, so acting against U.N. could be a way of shouting “here we are”

  3. While countries such as Germany or France feel 100% european (and maybe against US sensitive), Britain is a kind of bridge between Europe and Amercia, and Spain is also a link between Europe and south and central America - and also with some zones from US as Miami, where members from Aznar´s goverment have a lot of contacts. Britain and Spain have transatlantical links that other european countries did not have.

  4. All spanish goverments are very sensible about terrorism problems. So entering in the Iraq war could be seen as an against terrorism war.

  5. European countries as you know are very different ones from anothers. While Suiza (for example) has a neutral status, Spain was almost along all its history on war.

Just the last issue:

Not goverment? After WWII US had a huge relationship with franquist dictatorship. Some examples:

1950 - A 62 million dollar loan
1953 - millitary bases in Spain

The alliance between EEUU and Franco was a reallity - and of course, the alliances of EEUU with some dictatorships in latin-america -. The PP (the Aznar´s party ) is a right wing party, some of its members were also members of the Franco’s goverment. So is quite logicall a continuity in the policies.

That’s all. I hope all you can understand my engilsh.

Byes.