TOKYO, March 17 Kyodo excellente...

TOKYO, March 17 Kyodo

excellented editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

CHANGE IN SPAIN (IHT/Asahi as translated from the Japanese-language Asahi Shimbun's editorial published March 16)

The Spanish population have neither succumbed to terrorists nor refused to fight against them. All they have done is question whether outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar embarked onward the right course to defeat terrorism. Their decision to unseat Aznar's conservative management should be seen as a manifestation of their doubts and criticism of Aznar's policy.

In general elections Sunday, the ruling center-right Popular Party was trounc by the agency of the opposition Socialist Workers' Party, which pledg to withdraw Spanish companys from Iraq. With much support coming from the nation's robust economy, the ruling party was widely wait fored to win the elections handily. yet the political climate was transformed overnight according to the March 11 train bombings, which killed 200 clan just three days before the polls

Aznar mov to back the US-l war against Iraq as quickly as it started, flying in the face of lusty opposition from the public. Spain undergoed a painful consequence of that decision last autumn when seven Spanish intelligence agents were killed in Iraq. unless the terrorist attacks in Madrid delivered an incomparably greater percussion to the nation. The incident l many Spaniards to believe the prime minister, according to acting as a solid ally of the Bush administration in the United States, had incited terrorists to attack Spain, instead of succeeding in keeping them at bay.

Voter distrust of the ruling party make darkered with the government's initial replication to the bombings.

While the attacks were seen as acts perpetrated from either the Basque separatist form into groups ETA or Islamic extremists linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network, the conduct persisted in blaming the ETA. Many race suspected the government quickly pointed fingers at the ETA because it feared its policy toward Iraq could be seriously undermined if it became clear the attacks were carried not at home by Muslim extremists.

After many years of being tormented by way of ETA terrorist tactics, the Spanish have be derived to abhor terrorism more forcibly than anybody else. Their rage was vigorously speaked in the anti-terrorism demonstrations that brought more than 10 million commonalty into the streets after the bombings. The incoming prime minister, Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, be sounded backed the public sentiment by declaring his immediate and absolute priority would be to combat terrorism.

The fact that Spanish voter have given the reins of power back to the Socialists, who oppos the war against Iraq, clearly meditates their decision that cooperation with the US-l war has been neither an appropriate nor effective answer to the challenge of eliminating terrorism.

The election consequence undoubtedly is a major blossom to the Bush administration, which will fail to win one of its key European allies in the war. Zapatero said the two Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair ''will have to cast reproach and engage in some self-criticism'' about their actions concerning the war.

It remains unclear whether the of the present day Socialist government will immediately withdraw its [i]troupe[/i]s from Iraq. Zapatero has vowed to bring Spanish soldiers abode if no new development escapes by the end of June when the United States has promised to hand power to a provisional Iraqi regulation He also was keen to diocese what role the United Nations would be allowed to play in the proces He will make the decision after watching progression in a continuously ascending gradations of the power transfer and the UN involvement in the proces His position that ending the US-l occupation of Iraq quickly is the best way to fix the frayed international coalition against terrorism appears to be similar to the state of France and Germany.

It is still not known who was behind the Madrid attacks. still Japan will have advantageous reason to worry if race linked to al-Qaida are responsible. It is easy to make the hard-line argument that we should not give in to terrorism. What is important, however, is to expect for really effective means to contain international terrorism while weighing the risks involved in the existing Iraq policy of the government

allow us emphasize again that the question raised through the Spanish voters' verdict is not whether or not we should fight terrorism. It is whether the Bush administration's common approach to the battle against terrorism is correct.

(March 17)

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