Talk:Aftermath of the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings

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Some of the material in this article originally appeared at March 11, 2004 Madrid attacks. See the page history of that article and the archives of that page's talk page for details.

Contents

[edit] Post war election

The article claims:

It was the first time a government that backed the Iraq war has been voted out of office.

Was this the first election involving a government backing the Iraq war? Is this one government voted out of office out of many, or one out of one so far? Miguel 17:08, 2004 Mar 15 (UTC)

I think this was the first time a government which took part in the occupation of Iraq faced re-election. The US, UK, Australia, Poland have not had elections since last April. Adam 14:02, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pamplona death

Is the Pamplona baker shot dead a pending edit or is there some reason to not include the case here?

I had to draw a direct relevance line somewhere. We are not writing a chronicle of everything that has happened in Spain this week. Adam 00:44, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The shot happened after a discussion over a poster condemning the attacks. 1 person died.
Batasuna leaders point to the People's Party as (indirect) guilty of the murder. It could be constructed that the focus given by the Government to the ETA hypothesis fueled anger to the point of murder. --Error 02:33, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
While I do not sympathise with Batasuna, I do think the event is important enough in the political aftermath (within Spain). Just as I would expect the articles surrounding 9-11 to include references to the few deaths of muslim or south-asian immigrants in the USA immediately after 9-11, I would expect a mention of this incident in the "aftermath of 11-M" page. Moreover, NPOV requres us to include references to all POVs, and from the POV of Batasuna, the dead baker, and a woman who died at a demonstration to protest his death, are "victims of 11-M", as this article in Gara suggests when it says "202 people dead already". Miguel 19:58, 2004 Mar 17 (UTC)
It should be included. (As an aside, Balbir Singh Sodhi even has his own article.) –Hajor 20:05, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Restored. I trimmed the final part and maybe it's not the last version. I don't remember about that woman and don't feel like searching. --Error 01:00, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Passive voice

Following the attacks, initial suspicions focussed on the Basque armed separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ("Basque Fatherland and Liberty") or ETA, although suggestions that the Islamist organisation al-Qaida was responsible were also immediately raised.

Considering how politically important the question of blame seems to be, I think we really really must avoid the passive voice here. Who initially suspected ETA? Who suggested that al-Qaida was responsible? When? DanKeshet 07:40, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that this is an important question. But attributing these suggestions to individuals will not be easy, because my recollection is that both groups were immediately named as possible suspects by just about everbody, at least in the English-language media such as the BBC and CNN which I was following. Adam 08:42, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
'Mainstream media & government.' --Cantus 08:54, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
This type of issue is at the heart of "NPOV: A second course" as opposed to NPOV 101 that newbies learn every day. At first glance it appears like the paragraph is failing the Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words test of writing a decent article. But then you think about it a bit more and realize to assign that opinion (implicitly, even) to one organisation by quoting just that organisation, you are marginalizing an opinion that is held by "just about everybody". In fact this sort of thing is covered by the "weasel words can be a legitmate rhetorical device to deliver widely-held opinions" clause of Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. Anyway enough general pontificating, in this specific case, they are several (now former) government ministers to quote, as well as saying that news organisations agreed - Though it is quite shocking how little original thought goes on on some of these TV new programmes... I don't think the Casablanca bombings were mentioned by anyone until the guys got arrested, for example. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:17, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
To be fair to the ministers (who are not ex-ministers yet, by the way) I think it is not unreasonable for ETA to be the first suspect for any bombing atrocity in Spain. Obviously they had strong political desire that this be so, but in the absence of any hard evidence in the first few hours it was a fair call. Adam
The first few hours, yes, but they kept it up well into the Saturday. Here's a very interesting article on how the PP handled the information as it arose. –Hajor 20:10, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Page title

I do not like the title of this page. It should be changed to something other than "Responses to...". "Responses" does not reflect the content of the article. Maybe "Aftermath" is more suitable. dave 21:43, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)

I agree on this. Aftermath would be better, and would include *everything* that happens after the actual March 11 attack. --Vikingstad 23:50, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
It's also funny that the main Madrid attacks article has a long section called "Reactions". Reactions is almost a synonym of Responses I think... dave 00:21, Mar 17, 2004 (UTC)

I got rid of the old page and changed all links to this one Aftermath of...

It should also be in European date format, i.e., "Aftermath of the 11 March, 2004 Madrid attacks" - MPF 02:28, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Passeig de Gràcia

As an illustration of the correct use of Google, 7920 catalan pages spell it with an accent, against 580 that spell it without. ;-) Miguel 02:38, 2004 Mar 18 (UTC)

Besides which, I have a map on my wall that has it with an accent. Montrealais

[edit] Move page

Based on evidence in Talk:11_March_2004_Madrid_attacks (see Usage figures), I believe the name of this article should be changed (yet again) to Aftermath of the 11 March 2004 Madrid bombings, to reflect more accurately on how people identify the events. The more vague term attacks is used more correctly in the 9/11 article, because of the nature of those events. --Cantus 22:43, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

  • Oppose:
    • Texture 22:50, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC) - But I support it as a redirect.
  • Support:

Latest news: three alleged terrorists avoided arrest by blowing up an apartment building. I don't have time to follow this up to the minute, but if you speak Spanish you can try to start with [1] — {[User:Miguel|Miguel]]

[edit] What role did the bombing play in Spain's withdrawal from the 'Coalition of the Willing'?

I can't believe that neither this article, or the one on the bombing, or the main article on Spain addresses this question. Was it removed because it seemed too POV? I think that would have been a mistake. Even if the discussion stirs people emotions, people still want to read an informed discussion of it. -- Geo Swan 01:58, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

You may find some mention of this in the article on José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The gist of it is this: Zapatero had opposed the invasion of Iraq (like 90% of the spanish people) and made the campaign pledge that he would withdraw troops were he to become Prime Minister, which he promptly did. Miguel 20:56, 2005 September 8 (UTC)

[edit] March 13

The undeleted paragraphs (see the source!) were out of order in a way that made it look as if the March 13 demonstrations in fact took part on March 12. I encourage you to look at the following diff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aftermath_of_the_11_March_2004_Madrid_train_bombings&diff=22864228&oldid=22381212

Miguel 20:56, 2005 September 8 (UTC)

By the way, looking at the article again, the last two paragraphs referring to the March 13 demonstrations should be merged into the previous "political" section. They are clearly not "observances". Miguel 21:02, 2005 September 8 (UTC)

[edit] Edition Of Main Account

Southofwatford 21:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC) I have changed the status of this article to disputed, not because of anything in particular that is happening here, more because of disputes over the content of the main article 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. There is an editing process going on with this main article that could easily affect the content of this one, and I would like to see all changes made on either article to be done by discussion and consensus. Apart from this 'light' level of protection I have made no changes here.

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