Talk:2004 Madrid train bombings/Archive 9

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Randroide Answers to "Next Step"

Guys, I do not see you taking steps to Wikipedia:Requests for mediation.

I can not do this job because I always connect from "filtered" institutional net-access, and following those steps could result in new, undesired, controversial "truncation" of words by the software. I do not want that happenning.

Could you please follow the instructions in the link I provided?. Thank you.Randroide 10:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Randroide answers to New reference by Burgas00

Randroide 17:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC) At last we agree on something!...of course that the new section is a good idea: The false "suicidal" terrorists from PRISA will also be included there.

Come oooooon, boys, start writing that section. I do not want all the kudos for myself: The new proposed article is, by now, an effort made only by me.

But remember: NPOV and sources, all the sources. Just like me citing "El País" in the section about the doubts about the genuineness of the 13th bomb. Cheers Randroide 17:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

--Larean01 22:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, a good point. And all the remarks in COPE too. And the "moral certitudes" of Mariano Rajoy published in El Mundo.

Randroide 10:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC) I agree with you 100%, Larean.

Southofwatford 11:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC) What Randroide omits to mention on the section about the 13th bomb is that he only added balancing references when I insisted that he do so, the original version he created was entirely POV, as is much of the rest of the proposed article. Also, all the sources that he added from El Pais are only available to subscribers - NPOV it is not.

Randroide 13:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC) You are right, Southofwatford, in your "Randroide omits..." section.

If you have not subscription to "El País", I am sorry but that´s your problem. My "institutional" access also has some advantages, like paid access to "El País" (and many, many other publications and books). That´s one of the reasons for my exclusive use of "filtered" Internet accesss: It´s much easier for me to work here due to the easy availability of sources.

Do you see?. The truncation of words is offsett (I think) by better sources.

BTW, if you write under a "Randroide answers" section you are:

  • Invading "my" space. I do not mind, really. But you are doing it.
  • Risking new truncations on your messages. To avoid this, please write OUTSIDE "Randroide answers" sections.

If you think that the proposed article is POV, work in it to make it NPOV. The article is not "mine".

Southofwatford 14:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC) I'll take the risk of you truncating the reply and put it here, it's very short. The issue is not whether I subscribe to El País, its whether the people who read an article in the English Wikipedia subscribe to it. All sources used should be accessible to all readers of the article, putting in a source that readers will not be able to see just so you can claim the article is NPOV is, to my mind, completely unreasonable.

Randroide 14:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

All sources used should be accessible to all readers of the article

Very funny, Southofwatford.

I am going to follow this joke of yours.

  • Please propose also the deletion of all books as sources, because, did you know?, there is always someone without this or that book.
  • Delete all references to TV or radio stations, because that user in Brazil has no TV and no radio at home.
  • Delete all the references in spanish, because, did you know?, there are users who know no spanish.

It´s a pleasure to read this kind of funny jokes, really. I had a good laugh.

User:Southofwatford 15:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC) How strange that you should find it so funny, after all most of the sources we are providing should enable users to find out more information about what is being sourced, so to deliberately choose sources that require those users to pay to see the information is not funny, it's simply bizarre. Equally, in the English Wikipedia I would argue that choosing a Spanish or other foreign language source when an equally valid source exists in English does not make sense, except perhaps to those who are too busy laughing - your cynicism is evident in your response.

Randroide 08:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC) Once you have finished wasting your time in personal attacks ("cynic") against me, could you please explain us why you havent answered my Answers to "Next Step" section and why you have done nothing so far about the issue?.

You are very bombastic with your "Moving Forward On The RFC" sections and the like, but when is time to really do something, you drop.

This is a common pattern in your behavior, Southofwatford. But I am not going to call you "cynic". You know: WP:FAITH, WP:CIV (and if you didn´t know, you know now).

I really, really would like to see you doing something about Wikipedia:Requests for mediation, or adding something, anything to Controversies about the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings, or coming here with a new source or a new piece of data.

It would be wonderful to see your User doing something different to disputing with me in this Talk:Page, Southofwatford , because someone could think that you are here only to engage with me.

Burgass00 provided us a source, Larean with half dozen or a dozen of sources. So far, your "collaboration" here is to maintain us busy disputing with you.

BTW: I did not "deliberately choose sources that require those users to pay to see the information". Again you fail WP:FAITH. I just followed the links in my Internet access, which, yes, is filtered and truncates some words, but also gives me above average access to sources. You should be happy having a fellow wikipedian with privileged access to sources, Southofwatford, but you moan and groan about the issue. Why?. Following the WP:FAITH policy this behaviour of you is a riddle for me.

Southofwatford wrote: Equally, in the English Wikipedia I would argue that choosing a Spanish or other foreign language source when an equally valid source exists in English does not make sense

Are you going follow this piece of advice of yours and going to delete all the assertions on the article based in sources in spanish, Southofwatford?. Or are you going to start searching for alternative sources in english?.

I am not going to oppose that "interesting" course of action you suggested. Please, do it, Southofwatford: Put your money (i.e., your time) where your mouth is.

Southofwatford 08:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC) Randroide and the rules – once again you wave the rules in the face of other users whilst failing to apply them to yourself. The whole of your response here could be considered a direct personal attack.

I am, thankfully, not accountable to you or anyone else for how I freely choose to use what spare time I have. However, since you raised the question of why I am participating on this page I am happy to confirm that nothing has changed since the last time I responded on this issue; I continue to oppose the abuse of this article in Wikipedia for political objectives that were not achievable in the equivalent article in the Spanish Wikipedia. So no change there then.

On good faith – you responded to a reasonable point raised by me by attempting to treat it as a big joke and making it completely clear that you couldn’t care less if other users are not able to access the sources you provide – I am afraid the presumption of good faith did not survive such a contemptuous response.

On the issue of the RFC I would suggest that the archive pages you cited are a much more reliable and reputable source than the distorted account you try to present here.

Your aggressive, bullying manner as usual does nothing to improve your case, and as usual I will remind you that I am not affected by it.

New reference by Burgas00

Any comment on this?

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/policia/desbarata/montaje/sostener/teoria/conspirativa/torno/11-M/elpepunac/20061202elpepinac_14/Tes

--Burgas00 18:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Randroide 18:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC) Excellent job, Burgas00. This collaboration of yours is most welcome. I suggest you to wait a few days ("El Mundo" will also tell another version) a to add this history to Controversies#The_13th_bomb.

...but if you want to add the text now, I am not going to object.

Any sourced statement written in NPOV is welcome by me. Cheers.

--larean01 13:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Burgas00: ABC is being far more interesting than El Pais. What we know today is that at least two corrupt policemen conspired to plant evidence in FAVOUR of the conspiracy theory (they are accused by a judge of fabricating and denouncing a false crime), and that El Mundo swallowed the story whole... or worse: ABC goes as far as reporting that El Mundo would have been involved in the fabrication. There goes the credibility of El Mundo as a reliable source. At the very least, this shows the way El Mundo corroborates its stories.

Yes, here is another article appeared on ABC on this trama policial. Quite embarassing really. http://www.abc.es/20061203/nacional-terrorismo/intervienen-documento-escrito-disena_200612030251.html

--Burgas00 21:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford 14:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC) Well the last place to put this would be the section on the 13th bomb, based on the published information there is absolutely no demonstrated connection between the two cases, which does not of course mean that El Mundo hasn't tried to invent one. Perhaps it should go in a section on "media interference in the judicial process"?

--Larean01 16:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC) Yes, I was thinking about that. And that is a good section you are proposing Southofwatford.

Anyone found anything on El Mundo's version of the story? The paper seems to be keeping suspiciously quiet about all of this.--Burgas00 17:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


--Larean01 22:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

El Mundo has answered with a predictable smokescreen, crying foul because a "key" person in the investigation (their informer, Parrilla) is in jail. They have also sent out another smokescreen with a completely absurd but perfectly well-timed complaint by Cartagena, the imam who was controlled by Parrilla. You can find the links here:

http://foro.desiertoslejanos.com/viewtopic.php?id=191&p=8


With due respect, I do not find these news as very imporant. We must not fall in their trap. What El Mundo is doing is so evident that the new revelations have the same relevance that a new proof for the earth being round. This issue can be good as a footnote in the discussion of the arbitration but I do not think it is convenient to include in the main article since discuss something is to accept that exists a doubt. All this must be put in the article about Pedro J because is more about him than about 11-M.--Igor21 12:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


--Larean01 21:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Igor, with respect, I think you are wrong. This is very important. It shows the "quality" of El Mundo's reporting, at the very least: they believe a single source without corroboration and they negotiate the contents of the news with corrupt policemen. And some sources tell me this is only the tip of the iceberg. El Mundo has basically destroyed its credibility. I think that is a significant event.

And Pedro J. replies: http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2006/12/06/espana/1165418489.html?a=6a18a6aa166fe2881ed58b67897c617c&t=1165426325

--Burgas00 17:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford 10:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC) This is the kind of defence that says "Nothing that I do can be considered to be wrong as long as I can suggest that somebody else somewhere has done something that is worse". El Mundo seems to have knowingly destroyed a criminal investigation in progress so that it can make an entirely unsubstantiated connection between it and the Madrid bombings. Just further confirmation that they are not acting as independent journalists reporting on events, thay have now become active, interested, participants in those events.

This episode with the rest of episodes is very necesary to show that El Mundo does not belong to the set of "reliable sources" for any meaning of this expresion. However, in the final article, the presence of these people and their "investigations" (i.e. inmoral schemes, clumsy manipulations and intentional fabrications) should not have room. The main characters must be the victims, the killers, the people who helped the injured and the policemen who solved the case on-the-fly. The article about Pedro J is the place for explaining at lenght the feats of this suburbial citizen Kane.--Igor21 12:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

--Larean01 10:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


Anti CT sources.

--Larean01 15:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC) One more international and respected source has clearly and squarely positioned itself against Conspiracy Theories, The Economist:

Prosecutors and police are now convinced that only radical Muslims were involved. Seven blew themselves up in a mass suicide three weeks later, as they were about to be arrested. But senior PP figures have openly fanned conspiracy theories that still try to establish some link between the Islamists and ETA.


http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8382048

Randroide answers

Randroide 08:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC) Very good. I am also against conspiracy theories like the one presented in the Indictment: The "conspiracy theory" of an al-Quaida inspired bombing.

"El Mundo" is also an excellent anti CT source: They are against the al-Quaida Conspiracy Theory. Good!.

...but this quote from "The Economist" is NOT good:

Prosecutors and police are now convinced that only radical Muslims were involved [1]
This is a pure, undiluted  LIE.

The truth is that...

  • ...some policemen are now convinced that only radical Muslims were involved AND
  • ...some policemen are now convinced that "radical Muslims" autorship is extremely dubious.

Two examples of the latter:

    • Former police chief Agustín Díaz de Mera, who says that there is a secret official police report about the ETA involvement [2].
    • Former Guardia Civil EOD Luis Ángel Marugán Casado, who is highly critical with the official version about what we really know about which explosives went off in the day of the bombings ("El Mundo", july 24th 2006). Marugán Casado has 14 years of service in the Guardia Civil EOD unit, and is now retired due to the medical consequences of an bomb.

So, please guys, do not corrupt language and stop talking about a generic "police" that does not exist: There are only individual policeman, and their thinking is not unanimous at all.

Southofwatford 11:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC) Amazing, you find 2 retired ex-policemen, both of whom are clearly situated in the political orbit of the Partido Popular (one is a full-time PP politician), and claim that this means the Economist is lying! I don’t think that the Economist makes any claim to be expressing a view on the opinions of all of the retired policemen in Spain, what they are clearly talking about is the conclusions reached by those in active service who are involved in the investigation of the bombings. To call them liars implies an intention which I don’t think the Economist can justifiably be accused of having, this is not El Mundo and the Economist has no evident political motivation behind what it writes.

On the “secret” report allegedly linking ETA to the bombings I just repeat the same questions which have yet to receive an answer. Has Díaz de Mera seen this report? If he has seen it why doesn’t he tell us more about what it contains? If he hasn’t seen it then how does he know it exists? Is the report he refers to the famous boric acid document? Why did he wait until over two years after the bombings before making his claim? Until these questions are answered the existence of this supposed report is entirely unsubstantiated. Of course, I realise that such an unsubstantiated fact-free allegation is accepted without question by those who want to believe it is true, but any neutral observer would want to see more justification here.

Randroide 11:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford wrote: ...the Economist has no evident political motivation behind what it writes.

Of course that there´s a political motivation: All media has a political agenda.

Southofwatford wrote: Has Díaz de Mera seen this report? If he has seen it why doesn’t he tell us more about what it contains?

Please, hear the interview I linked above and stop asking superfluous questions.

Ah, and you have an enormous mass of unanswered questions asked by me. Have a nice day, Southofwatford.

Southofwatford 11:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC) The Economist has a political bias, which would make it more sympathetic to the PP than the PSOE, but that is simply not the same as having a political agenda. When they write about the PP and the Madrid bombings they write as disinterested observers of the situation, unless you can show that they have some particular political axe to grind on this issue? I'm unaware of it.

I will try and listen to the interview later bit I suspect from what I have already read about it that it will not answer my questions - the allegation is made in such a vague way that it cannot possibly be disproved, because it contains no evidence that can be tested.

Southofwatford wrote: The Economist...When they write about the PP and the Madrid bombings they write as disinterested observers of the situation

Yeah, sure: As "disinterested" as you and me.

Besides: Everybody knows that magazines write editorials in issues they are "disinterested". Randroide 17:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

--Larean01 18:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Ooops. The Economist lies. It does not make a mistake, no. It LIES. Surely they have been abducted by the evil Rubalcaba. The conspiracy is clearly getting out of hand. I don't know how we are going to be able to keep quiet 85% of the Western population.

At any rate Díaz de Mera is not a professional policeman. He is a professional politician and a member of the European Parliament by which party? Of course: the PP. Here his resume BEFORE being head of police:

Licenciado en Historia Moderna y Contemporánea. Diplomado en Comunidades Europeas. Director del Colegio Mayor "San Juan Evangelista" (Madrid).

Secretario General del PP (Ávila); miembro de la Junta Directiva Nacional del PP y miembro de su Comisión Permanente en Castilla y León.

Presidente del PP de Ávila (1996-2000).

Teniente de Alcalde (Ávila). Alcalde de Ávila (1999-2002). Senador (1989-1993);

Diputado al Congreso (1993-1996); Senador (1996-2000 y 2000-2004);

Presidente de la Comisión de Defensa.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public/geoSearch/view.do?country=ES&partNumber=1&language=ES&id=28397

Wow. Eat your heart out, Eliott Ness. This is a real policeman, not you. By the way. Ávila, Ávila, Ávila. And he becomes head of police in 2002, the same year Acebes (the "baron" of the PP in Ávila) becomes minister. Funny coincidences.

So you have ONE policeman who is not an active policeman... and he does NOT even express doubts about Islamist authorship! He does not express any thought that can lead us to believe he is "now convinced that "radical Muslims" autorship is extremely dubious." He just puts into question the way a given report has been presented:

http://www.belt.es/noticiasmdb/HOME2_noticias.asp?id=1528

You take a loooong leap there, Randroide. A very long leap. It is called non sequitur.

And you call that "examples", and you call the policemen who back the summary "some". And we are the ones who corrupt language. We and The Economist, I guess. Geez.

Southofwatford 18:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC) Randroide, I suggest you Google or look up in a dictionary the words uninterested and disinterested - they do not have the same meaning and yes, magazines can and do write disinterested editorials. Then you can explain to us what the political agenda of the Economist is relating to the Madrid bombings because I am unaware that they have one.

Randroide 20:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC) To Larean: OK, Larean. I checked De Mera´s curriculum and he is not really part of the spanish police. You are right and I was wrong. Thank you very much for the work you made with this issue: You corrected my error.

And now...

  • ...is Luis Ángel Marugán Casado part of the spanish police?. He spent 14 years in the Guardia Civil EOD team. Yes or no please.
  • ...are the "peritos del ácido bórico" part of the spanish police?. Yes or no, please.
  • ...You said that the PP membership of De Mera is relevant. Well, is also relevant the PSOE membership of the policemen who support the Official Conspiracy Theory (an al-Quaida inspired plot)?. Yes or no, please.

To Southofwatford: Thank you for the english lesson, Southofwatford. I fell into a first class false friend. Now I know the difference.

Yes: You are right and I was wrong, magazines can (and in an ideal world should) write disinterested editorials.

I am not a reader of "The Economist", so I do not know about that publication agenda.

But: Please note that "The Economist" does not cite a single fact, but only makes accusations against the PP.

Mediation Request

Southofwatford 14:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC) To submit a request for mediation we need to identify those issues where we want the mediator to help us, and then submit these issues as a list of brief bullet points. I am very short of time at the moment but if everyone involved can list the key points they think should be included, then I will try to put it all together. If we cannot do this by Friday then I will not be able to submit the request, because of personal commitments that mean I will have very little Internet access time until the middle of January. If it takes longer then someone else can do the actual submitting of the request but perhaps making it clear that not all editors will be able to participate until mid-January. Given that there seems to be a backlog of mediation requests that might not be much of a problem, and a Christmas cooling off period might also be welcome for everyone?

I though we were already waiting until mid January and that this chatting was only to kill time until arbitration decides if El Mundo -with his particular way of doing investigations by bribing policemen to simulate facts- can be be used as source bearing in mind that contradicts all the international reliable media. --Igor21 14:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford 15:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC) Igor21, we have to make the request for mediation, and then wait until someone has time to do it - so if we don't ask until January we may have to wait a lot longer.

Can I suggest as the first bullet point "What criteria should we be using for assessing validity of proposed sources?".

I remind you all that the sticking point on the main article was not the question of sources.

For me the main question is to establish if El Mundo is a source or not. If it is accepted that is a source only suitable for "conspiracy theories" article, it will be posible to write the main article in a truthfull way since El Mundo is the only source of the bizarre theories. Then all the conspirationist theories will be included in its own article as was done in 9/11 --Igor21 19:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford 20:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC) The issue with the mediation request is just to establish the points of conflict for which we would like mediation, nothing else - the debate we have during the mediation process itself. So the bullet points just identify mediation issues, and that is open for all of us to do, not just me. The other bullet points have yet to be decided but they need to cover things which are blocking any progress

Of course there were many differences between editor but in my view all were derived from the fact that El Mundo es feeding the small group of media who are "disidents" with faked revelations. If we rule out this "investigations" -like the one we commented last week with the bribing of crooked policemen to simulate explosives smugling- we would get rid of the big problems. But this is just my opinion and I do not want to lead anything since I do not have experience in english wikipedia and I am not a native English speaker (you would probably guesses so from my "Marbella waiter" grammar and vocabulary).--Igor21 10:46, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford 13:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Well I suggest as the second bullet point "Mediation on difficulties of wording in the separation of controversies from the main article". Any other issues that anyone wants to raise?

My suggested bullet point is "Can a local newspaper be used as a source in the main article when contradicts the indictment, the police investigation, the consensus amongst specialists in terrorism and all the world class international media and -added to this- has been caught fabricating evidence? or should it go to the conspiracy theories article?"--Igor21 17:00, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford 18:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC) All editors involved have to agree for the mediation to go ahead, so all we need to do is define the topics for mediation, then you can say whatever you want to when the process begins. So the bullet points just need to be short definitions of those topics, the debate comes later.

Southofwatford 16:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC) Sorry everyone, but I don't have time today to submit the mediation request and I am going to have very limited access to Internet in the next 4 weeks. Can someone else please submit the mediation template with my bullet point on sources, and Randriode's second suggestion on controversies. If there is a way to make clear that not all of us will be able to participate before mid-January then that should be done, so that mediation can include all points of view.

Randroide answers

Randroide 14:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Igor21 wrote: ...until arbitration decides if El Mundo...[]...can be be used as source

No, Igor21. That´s not going to be the point of mediation.

The point of the mediation is going to be a definition about which sources are valid to the article. Allegations will be presented against several sources, not only against "El Mundo".

Radroide : Yes, you want to do the oposite thing. Get rid of all the sources except El Mundo since for you is the only newspaper in the world that is not written by the same evil hand that conspires in the shadows.--Igor21 19:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Randroide 20:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong about my intentions, Igor21.

Could you please tell us about the other, ehr, "Bullet points", Southofwatford?.

Randroide 13:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Second "bullet point" suggested wording: "Definition about what is "controversial" and what is not".

Randroide 17:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Look, Igor21, I am not going to put my user name under that bullet point of yours. I suggest to simply make a barebones common statement, i.e. :We have disagreements about the article. After that, we present an individual statement.

20:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)I agree in submitting to the mediation process, and I think that we all agree in the fact that we have a conflict about what is the proper content and focus ("controversies" vs. "wacko conspiracy theories") to the article.

I am afraid that trying to go beyond these simple statements is going to be impossible. Impossible and unnecessary.


Unsourced claims removed

If you can find a proper source, please add the claims to the main article:

[[3]]

I do not know what this is, and IMHO the picture is nonnotable. Any idea?.Randroide 20:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Despite the Spanish Government's claims that the explosive used was titadine, a type of compressed dynamite used by ETA in recent years, forensic analysis of one of the remaining unexploded devices found at El Pozo revealed the explosive used there to be Goma-2, manufactured in Spain and not used by ETA since the 1980s Randroide 18:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Later evidence strongly pointed to the involvement of extremist Islamist groups, with the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group named as a focus of investigations.
Consequently, all railway traffic to and from Madrid was shut down, including commuter, regional, and intercity trains as well as the high-speed AVE service to Seville. International rail traffic to and from Madrid was also interrupted due to security concerns, although trains to and from France departed from Chamartín, Madrid's second largest train station. According to the French SNCF, this was done at the request of the Spanish authorities. [citation needed]
RENFE organized alternative transportation, and moved 3,000 passengers by road. Around 18:30, traffic to and from Chamartín and Príncipe Pío was restored, including some commuter rail lines and northbound national and international traffic out of Chamartín.
A blood donation bus, which had already been parked in the Puerta del Sol for a number of days [citation needed], became inundated with donors, with several hundred queuing to offer their assistance.
The towns served by the commuter rail line on which the bombings occurred are home to large Latin American and Eastern European immigrant communities. Many of the 250,000 people using the line each day are students, blue-collar workers, and middle-class people who cannot afford to live in the city of Madrid and so commute from neighbouring communities.
Initially it was feared that families of illegal immigrants killed in the terrorist attack would be afraid to contact the authorities for fear of being deported for immigration violations, but Spanish Prime Minister José Aznar announced an immigration amnesty for victims of the attack.[citation needed]
Official statements issued shortly after the Madrid attacks identified ETA as the prime suspect, but the group, which usually claims responsibility for its actions, denied any wrongdoing Scores die in Madrid bomb carnage (BBC News)</ref>. Source does not say that —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Randroide (talk • contribs) 13:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC).
I stumbled with a source for this statement. Restored.Randroide 15:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
However, the official rally in Barcelona, which had politicians from all political parties in attendance, resulted not only in scuffles between demonstrators of differing viewpoints but also the forced evacuation of Rodrigo Rato, Spain's Economy Minister and Vice President (later appointed Director of the IMF) and Josep Piqué, president of the Partido Popular de Catalunya, who were being jostled and insulted by the angry crowd. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Randroide (talk • contribs) 13:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC).
apparently also provoked by the news that President Bush had expressed on the BBC his regret for the bombings coming as a result of Spain's involvement in Iraq. Notably this news came from abroad while the media in Spain seemed unable to emit any such information. The demonstrators accused the government of lying about the responsibility for the attacks and demanded that the truth be told before going to vote. [1]

Source: Eyewitness account, gosh!!. Randroide 14:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The conduct of the protestors on the Saturday was strictly speaking illegal: with a General Election the following day, the Saturday is designated as the "day of reflection" ("día de reflexión"), during which all political activism is banned. That said, the many TV appearances of the PP candidate Mariano Rajoy on the same day, were also illegal. Randroide 14:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
...government ministers Eduardo Zaplana and Angel Acebes had approached King Juan Carlos and asked him to approve the imposition of a Law of Exception (Ley de Excepción—effectively Martial Law) Randroide 14:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
At 08:40, the ruling People's Party suspended all electoral campaigning. Shortly after, Mariano Rajoy, the People's Party candidate for prime minister, cancelled all his electoral activity for the day. The opposing Socialist Party cancelled all campaigning at 08:59. At 09:02 Prime Minister Aznar also cancelled all public appearances.
Prime Minister Aznar spoke with King Juan Carlos, then with leaders of the political parties in parliament and with the heads of government of Spain's autonomous communities. At 10:36 a "Crisis Cabinet" was convened, including Aznar, Deputy Prime Ministers Rodrigo Rato and Javier Arenas and Interior Minister Acebes. Randroide 15:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Ibarretxe...[]..."those who commit these atrocities are not Basque" and "ETA writes its own ending with terrible actions". Randroide 20:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Investigators subsequently found that the explosives used in the Leganés explosion were of the same type as those used in the 11 March attacks and the thwarted bombing of the AVE line. Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name (see the help page).

The source [4] does not say that, and that´s due to a very simple reason: We still do not know which kind of explosives went off in the trains. Pedro J. Ramírez asked for the official reports about the analysis made in the site of the explosions in july 2006, with no success.Randroide 17:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

34 of these 40 imputed were informers and / or controlled by the Police, Civil Guard and National Center of Intelligence before the attacks and contains weird coincidences like the Moroccan El Chino who distributed hash in the Basque country. A notebook of Carmen Toro, member of the Asturian group, contained the cellphone number of the chief of TEDAX. The cellphones used in the bombing were purchased from a shop of Mausilli Kalaji, a Spanish police officer and former member of Al Fatah Strange Coincidences in Madrid (English translation of the El Mundo article)

Bad source: It´s a blog.Randroide 19:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Article size

The amount of space dedicated to what happened during and immediately after the bombs' explosion is ridiculously small when compared with the following sections dealing with all the controversy about the elections and the ETA theory. I'd like to suggest the creation of several subarticles to avoid this, to approach something like the September 11 2001 attacks article. In fact, this entire article is getting too long (58 kb), it _should_ be reduced in size (just click edit this page in the article to see the warning). Cheers, and let me know if I can provide any help with this. Raystorm 15:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

You are right about the size of the article, Raystorm, but dividing it is not an easy task, because it is difficult to reach an agreement about what is "controversial" and what is not.
I am trying to improve things removing at least the unsourced lines.
Another option would be to move all the aftermath section to Aftermath of the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. Randroide 17:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)"Reactions
Well, the division could be a chronological one, not one based on what is controversial or not. Let's say until three days after the explosion, and then start sub-articling the following sections? I like your idea of moving all the aftermath section, but it's gotta be done carefully, or we'll have the opposite problem on our hands: a very small article here, and a really long one (the aftermath one) elsewhere. Raystorm 11:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Not so easy, Raystorm: There´s a chronology of what happened and a totally different chronology of when we knew that this ot that happened.
I suggest: The creation of Reactions to the 2004 Madrid train bombings. "Reactions" is a very long and noncontroversial section. I think it is the deal section to go out.Randroide 20:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Morocco's radical Islamist Combat Group

i haven't edited this page at all so i'm not sure if this has been addressed. according to the Independent[5], the bombers were "taught in training camps in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, under instruction from members of Morocco's radical Islamist Combat Group." there isn't much info about this group on the internet, but i did come across this paper by Mohamed Darif. He is a Professor of Political Science, Hassan II University, Mohamedia[6]. according to his paper, there are definitely links between this group and al Qaeda. should this be incorporated into the article. while the Independent did report "While the bombers may have been inspired by Bin Laden, a two-year investigation into the attacks has found no evidence that al-Qa'ida helped plan, finance or carry out the bombings, or even knew about them in advance", the Islamist Combat Group does appear to share a historical link with al Qaeda. any thoughts on this. i suggest anyone interested in this read Mohamed Darif's paper. Anthonymendoza 17:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Uh. You made a quite interesting job. The Elcano report seems to contradict The Independent. Good job. Be bold and please add that information to the article. If appropiate sources present contradictory information, all sources should be presented to let the reader make his own mind.
Yeah, seems...but please note that "...has found no evidence that al-Qa'ida helped plan, finance or carry out the bombings, or even knew about them in advance" is not neccessarily in contradiction with an alleged al-Qaeda related group providing training to the allegued perpetrators. You can provide training to a bunch of guys and know nothing about what they are going to do with that training. Randroide 17:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  1. ^ eye witness account in Barcelona
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