by liberal japonicus
A good chance to work on my Spanish, here is Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez’ speech. The English translation is on the next page.
Pages: 1 2
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
Full disclosure: My brain went straight to Napoleon Dynamite.
I guess the White House will officially be ‘disappointed’ and His Orangeness will commit the usual crimes against the English language in inexpertly expressing this sentiment via his social media account.
I will be pleasantly surprised if the administration is merely “disappointed.”. What I expect is more like “outraged at the betrayal.”.
That’s why I made a distinction between the official reaction (to be delivered by Leavitt) and the (formally private) rants of His Orangeness. Leavitt will of course also sneer but the wording will be more conventional.
Not a bad speech for a socialist economist. Listening to the lisp was good for my Spanish too. He lost me here:
La pregunta, en cambio, es si estamos o no del lado de la legalidad internacional y, por tanto, de la paz . . .
Pero al mismo tiempo rechazamos este conflicto y pedimos una solución diplomática y política.
IMHO, si, son ingenuous. Time will tell.
That elision is reveals a bit more about the Spanish politics involved.
La ciudadanía española siempre repudió la dictadura de Sadam Hussein en Irak, pero no por ello apoyó la guerra de Irak, porque era ilegal, porque era injusta y porque no supuso una resolución real a casi ninguno de los problemas que pretendió resolver.
Del mismo modo, nosotros repudiamos al régimen de Irán que reprime, que mata vilmente a sus ciudadanos, particularmente a las mujeres.
There is a little back story to the Iraq part, Spain was part of the coalition of the willing in 2003 and the PM, Aznar, a conservative and a staunch ally of Bush, but there were train bombings in Madrid that the ruling party first blamed on ETA, but was later revealed to be a home-grown Islamist cell, something that seemed to be suppressed by the government because they knew it would f-up support for the deployment. (that summary doesn’t really do justice to all of the ins and outs)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Madrid_train_bombings
Aznar was kicked out for Zapatero, the socialist candidate, who had campaigned against the deployment and withdrew Spanish troops when he got in office.