The war in Spain

Being here in Spain the last few days has allowed me to get a little window on how the war(s) is/are looking from outside the U.S. The news here has been full of the story of two young soldiers who died in Afghanistan, and there was a protest today in Seville against the wars.

Speaking of wars, I´m noticing that everyone from protestors to the national press (what I´ve seen of it) seems to tie Iraq and Afghanistan far more tightly than in the U.S. At home, the public is decidedly gloomy about the Iraq war, while Afghanistan is more or less invisible. Even so, I would imagine — and when I´m not at an Internet cafe on my vacation I´ll probably look this up to verify — that if you polled Americans today, you´d still get a solid 70% in favor of staying in Afghanistan.

The rhetoric I´m hearing in Spain doesn´t support that. Of course, I don´t know enough about Spanish politics to make any sort of educated guesses about how much domestic exasperation is being taken out on the president (a la ¨Why are you letting Bush push you around?¨)

Also, I asked the young woman handing out flyers at the demonstration if the group was a religious one and she looked at me like I had two heads. There´s a data point in favor of Europe as much more secular than the U.S. (I did explain to her that in my country, groups protesting the war are often doing it in part because of religious beliefs. Just so she wouldn´t think my question was coming out of thin air.)

posted by Sra. Bibliotecaria ⋅ tagged international, politics, war

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