Talk:2004 Madrid train bombings

• User:Larean01/Atelier 1
• /Controversies about the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings
• /Atelier 3: Sources not accepted by an User
• /Proposed additions

Chronological Archives
1 2 3 4

Answer to a question made by Southofwatford

Section initiated by Randroide 17:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford [1]:

Southofwatford 17:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC) No Randroide, this is a disputed article and changes have to be made by consensus, and that obviously includes sources. You have shown me no rule that says we are obliged to accept a given source. Editors are not robots, they have to make decisions on what material to include, and what to exclude; and they are fully entitled to exclude material that they feel is not good enough, or which is clearly wrong - whatever the source. Show me a rule that says that is not possible.

Of course that your (and mine) "feelings" about the soundness of the material are totally irrelevant in Wikipedia: You think that "El Mundo" allegations against the indictment are unsupported, I think that the Indictment is a house of cards. According with Wikipedia rules BOTH sources should be properly cited and sourced.

Here is the rule you asked for:

The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being the truth, and all significant published points of view are to be presented, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions. WP:NPOV#Explanation_of_the_neutral_point_of_view

---

Randroide : The key word is "fairly". You think that include twisted lies and evidently false statements is to present something "fairly"? Did you ever grasp the meaning of "fairly"? Igor21 18:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

---

Randroide 18:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)Answers:

• 1. No, obviously no. Twisted lies do not represent "fairly" anything.
• 2. Your question was rethoric. Obviously, yes: I know the meaning of "fairly".

---

Southofwatford 07:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC) My first observation is that this rule says absolutely nothing about the selection of suitable sources. I have no problem with the different points of view being represented, or that this should be done fairly - but where does it say in this rule that we are obliged to accept sources that misrepresent known facts or which make claims without substantiating them?

Our opinions about the soundness of the material are not irrelevant in Wikipedia, if you do not want an article that stretches to thousands of pages, with thousands of sources, then decisions have to be made on which material should be included, how it should be presented, and what sources back it up. I'm afraid the rule you have cited does not do that for us. Also, treating views fairly does not mean treating them as if they are equal, again you are seeking a false equivalence. The alternative explanations of the bombings are not backed up with evidence - dates, names and places. Until they are, then you cannot claim that they have equal standing. Insinuations and hints of conspiracy are not equivalent to the body of evidence presented in the indictment and fair treatment should make that difference clear. None of the views should be given undue weight. Treating the conspiracy theories as equivalent to the judicial indictment means giving undue weight to those theories.

You are going to have to recognise Randroide, that these rules you refer to are just general guidelines that do not determine the content of the final article. You still have not shown me a rule that says we are obliged to accept any source.

---

Randroide 11:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC) You have not yet explained us which concrete sources you object, Southofwatford. I ask you again (it´s the third of fourth time I ask you this question): Which concrete sources do you object?.

Stop writing again, and again, and again the same arguments, Southofwatford. Just point to concrete sources and your reasons to not including them.

I even created especially for you a page to make an orderly discussion of this issue: Talk:11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings/Atelier 3: Sources not accepted by an User.

If this issue it is not your priority I am sorry. That´s your problem: It was neither my priority the split of the "controversies" section and here I am working on that, just because you blanked my addition about the Vallecas Bag arguing that was something to be included in the "controversies" article.

---

Southofwatford 11:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC) This a classic response - who introduced this section, you or me? I merely responded to the point you made, if I repeat arguments it's because you decided to continue with a debate that we have had before. I have to repeat another argument here, but if you know you are not going to like the answer to a question then maybe you shouldn't raise the question in the first place.

On the list of sources, I have already replied on this issue the other day on this page, explaining my reasons for not doing things this way. I don't want to repeat my arguments again, but I really think the issue of validity of sources depends on the final shape of the proposed text in the controversies page - and we are a long way from that at the moment. The valiidity of the source depends upon the context in which it is used and the affirmations it is being used to support.

---

Randroide 19:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC) We will stick to the factual information presented by "El Mundo", and we will try to avoid "EL Mundo" interpretations of facts. Is that acceptable four you, Southofwatford?.

Southofwatford 16:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)== Remarks on the Atelier ==

--Larean01 15:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Randroide: I disagree with your remarks.

1) You state: "Larean wrote: The bag WAS discovered amidst objects gathered from the trains in Vallecas. That statement is FACT. IT IS NOT A FACT, Larean. It is a fact that the Indictment and some policemen say that, but it is ALSO a fact that other policemen expressed doubts in "el Mundo" about if that bag was really in the trains. BOTH facts should go together"

Firstly, I still don't know of any policemen who have expressed doubts about whether the bag was in the trains. If you refer to Miguel Ángel Álvarez, he did nothing of the kind. He simply failed to identify the bag in front of the judge. This is totally different from what you are claiming. There is no record of Álvarez saying "Well, the bag might not have been in the train", or words to that effect. El Mundo of course says it, but you should distinguish between El Mundo's opinion(I am inclined to use another word) of what Álvarez said and what Álvarez actually said.

Secondly, you still don't get my meaning. My writing does not want to imply that the bag was in the trains. I leave that point purposefully out. What I say is that the bag was identified around 2:00 AM in the morning while an inventory of items taken from El Pozo was being conducted, and that it was identified in a bag containing those items. This is what I call fact, not that the bag was in the train. Now, if you can come up with an alternative writing to reflect that fact, we can discuss it.

2) You have completely stricken out my paragraph concerning controversies. This is strange, as I put it there to provide the balance you want. I think 95% of it is factual, as it states only what some people say. What I have tried to do with this paragraph is joining all of the disputed elements that you pointed out in other places of the Aftermath section (bag from Vallecas and suicide in Leganes), putting them together in a single paragraph which introduces the concept of controversy. I think it significantly adds to clarity.

Now, concerning weasel words. My issue here is that it is very difficult to summarise conspiracy theories. Pedro Jota and Del Pino might hold different opinions, and even change their opinion in time. That was what I was trying to convey. Still, I have no problem writing it thus (Weasel words hopefully eliminated):

The authorship of the bombings remains deeply controversial in Spain. Part of the Partido Popular (PP), now in opposition, as well as some media outlets such as El Mundo, "La Razón", the COPE radio station (owned by the Spanish catholic church), point to alleged inconsistencies and contradictions in the Spanish judiciary investigation. These sources (now it clearly refers to El Mundo, etc), along with several Internet blogs and Websites, have even disputed the authenticity of the seminal evidence that led to the first arrests (the detonators and the unexploded bomb), hinting more or less openly at a widespread conspiracy to mislead the judges and the public about the true authors and their motivations. Libertad Digital and COPE have also disputed the Leganés suicide, stating that it is a giant coverup operation, including the assasination of the seven alleged terrorists. Many other claims have been raised by these sources. Additionally, there is strong controversy over the events immediately following the bombings and preceding the general elections that took place three days later. In particular, the role of the government, political parties and media shaping public opinion during those days is hotly debated. More detailed discussion of these issues can be found in the article Controversies concerning the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings.

---

Randroide 19:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Larean wrote:I still don't know of any policemen who have expressed doubts about whether the bag was in the trains

El funcionario de Policía insistió ante el juez en la imposibilidad de mantener que la bolsa que contenía la Goma 2 Eco, con la metralla, el detonador y el teléfono móvil, formara parte de los objetos recogidos en El Pozo, ya que en el lugar de los hechos la juez no ordenó que se hiciera un inventario de los mismos......Para sorpresa del juez, Alvarez fue rotundo: aquélla no era la bolsa que él recogió de El Pozo. La que se amontonó junto al resto de objetos el día 11 de marzo era, según declaró el inspector jefe al juez, más alargada y más baja, tenía las asas más cortas, era de un color azul distinto y, sobre todo, era mucho más vieja. La bolsa que le mostró Del Olmo era prácticamente nueva, impecable.[2]

If this is not "expressing doubts" for you, I am afraid I have nothing else to say to you about this issue. Sorry if I look harsh with you, Larean, because that´s not my intention, really. I suggest you to stop talking about your (disputable) interpretations of this policeman words and my (equally disputable) interpretations, and stick to the verbatim words that "El Mundo" says he said. We can forget about "El Mundo" interpretations to avoid disputes.

Larean wrote: What I say is that the bag was identified around 2:00 AM in the morning while an inventory of items taken from El Pozo was being conducted, and that it was identified in a bag containing those items. This is what I call fact, not that the bag was in the train.

Good job. If you stick to those undisputed facts, everything will be O.K. A brief reference should also be made about the disputed genuineness of the Vallecas bag.

Larean wrote: My issue here is that it is very difficult to summarise conspiracy theories. Pedro Jota and Del Pino might hold different opinions

I agree with you 100%. It´s not an easy task. Let´s try to do a good job.

Good text, Larean. I made some corrections:

The authorship of the bombings remains deeply controversial in Spain. Part of the Partido Popular (PP), now in opposition, as well as some media outlets such as El Mundo, La Razón, the COPE radio station (owned by the Spanish catholic church) and TeleMadrid T.V station, point to alleged inconsistencies and contradictions in the Spanish judiciary investigation. These sources, along with several Internet blogs and Websites, have even disputed the authenticity of the seminal evidence main exhibit that led to the first arrests (the detonators and the unexploded bomb): The Vallecas bag, hinting more or less openly at a widespread conspiracy coverup to mislead the judges and the public about the true authors and their motivations. Libertad Digital and COPE have also disputed the Leganés suicide, stating that it is a giant coverup operation, including the probable assasination of the seven alleged terrorists. Many other claims have been raised by these sources. Additionally, there is strong controversy over the events immediately following the bombings and preceding the general elections that took place three days later. In particular, the role of the government, political parties and media shaping public opinion during those days is hotly debated. More detailed discussion of these issues can be found in the article Controversies concerning the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings.

AFAIK the Kangoo detonators led to no arrests. Please correct me if I am wrong.

The "bomb" status of the Vallecas bag is also disputed. In fact it is incorrect to call it a "bomb", because its detonation was impossible by its very estructure (loose untaped wires).

With the minor changes and additions I made, this is OK for me.

---

--User:larean 23:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

1) The account of El Mundo of what Álvarez said to the judge is not correct. The indictment's version of Alvarez declaration expresses no such doubts. This is one of those cases mentioned by Southofwatford in which El Mundo can be disproved quoting the primary source.

2) A bomb is a bomb is a bomb is a bomb. Loose untaped wires do not make it anything else. Still, I will not quarrel about such a minor point.

3) References to disputed facts are made in the paragraph that you edited. As I have mentioned, I am trying to concentrate all the "disputed" items in one paragraph, the one you edited.

4) Trashorras was being questioned before the Saturday arrests. The Kangoo detonators led to him.

5) Thanks for the agreement.

---

Southofwatford 08:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC) Personally I think we are sinking back into a situation similar to that which we should be trying to avoid. Some of this paragraph would be acceptable as part of an introduction to the controversies page, but it should not be here in what is supposed to be a brief, factual aftermath section - with links both to the lengthier aftermath article and to the controversies page. The more we add to it the more objections will be raised. For example, it is very flattering for us to say that the authenticity of the Vallecas bomb is disputed when no clear evidence has been produced to back that up that dispute. It would more accurate in these circumstances to say that there are attempts to dispute the authenticity of the bomb, and certainly in the case of Leganés where the state of the evidence that it was just a set up is essentially pathetic. Then, if we are going to have a lengthier introduction on the conspiracy theories in the main article, we should also really be able to refer to the political intentions behind the conspiracy theories - and perhaps also the commercial side of the operation.

---

--Larean01 10:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford, I believe we are making progress. The main article should include some mention to conspiracy theories, and the reason I have talked about the Vallecas bag and the Leganés suicide is because they are mentioned before in the article, and Randroide wanted to include the word "disputed" every time one of those items was mentioned. My proposed solution is, in the spirit of the Kennedy assasination article, to put together all of Randroide's objections in one paragraph, the one above. That way the narrative flows much better.

At any rate, let me try to incorporate your remarks:

The authorship of the bombings remains deeply controversial in Spain. Part of the Partido Popular (PP), now in opposition, as well as some media outlets such as El Mundo, La Razón, the COPE radio station (owned by the Spanish Catholic Church) and TeleMadrid T.V. station (owned by Madrid's government, currently PP), point to alleged inconsistencies and contradictions in the Spanish judiciary investigation. These sources, along with several Internet blogs and Websites, have even attempted to dispute the authenticity of one of the main exhibits that led to the first arrests, the Vallecas bag, hinting more or less openly at a coverup to mislead the judges and the public about the true authors and their motivations. Libertad Digital and COPE have also attempted to dispute the Leganés suicide, stating that it is a coverup operationsetup which might even include the assasination of the seven alleged terrorists. Many other claims have been raised by these sources. Most of these attempt to point to ETA's participation in the attacks or try to accuse Police of meddling with evidence. No material evidence has been uncovered so far to support any of these claims. Critics of what they label as conspiracy theories, in return, say that all of the detractors of the judicial investigation have strong partisan and possibly commercial interests which are advanced by making the above mentioned claims. [Sources abound for this last sentence. In particular Enrique de Diego is a very good one as it is devastating criticism coming from the Right. I will try to look it up.]

Additionally, there is strong controversy over the events immediately following the bombings and preceding the general elections which took place three days later. In particular, the role of the government, political parties and media shaping public opinion during those days is hotly debated. More detailed discussion of these issues can be found in the article Controversies concerning the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings.

---

Southofwatford 13:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC) Ok, that looks better to me, I don't think it should grow any bigger than this - all we need is to provide a context for the more detailed articles that we link to. In addition to any source that you can add for Enrique de Diego, this might be a good place to add the recent Guardian article by Giles Tremlett [3] to give a bit of background for English speaking readers?

---

Randroide 11:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC) We have a new doubter of the Indictment: "La Gaceta de los negocios" [4]. I suggest to say that "several spanish media expressed doubts about the indictment".

I also suggest to create a section in "controversies" about "who is who" in this issue: "El País", "El Mundo", "ABC", "La Razón"... there we can explain that "Tele Madrid" is controlled by the PP, that "El País" is left wing, "ABC" right wing...the whole lot of explanations for non-spanish reader.

I do not know that Enrique de Diego stuff. Please note that blogs are NOT valid Wikipedia sources.

Proposed text. I removed the different colours from the proposals made by Larean I agree with. Most of my proposed changes are not red, but I discuss those changes below.

The authorship of the bombings remains controversial in Spain. Part of the Partido Popular (PP), now in opposition, as well as several media point to alleged inconsistencies and contradictions in the Spanish judiciary investigation. These sources, along with several Internet blogs and Websites, have even disputed the genuineness of the main exhibits that led to the first arrests, the Vallecas bag, hinting more or less openly at a coverup to mislead the judges and the public about the true authors and their motivations. The Leganés events have also been disputed, with some media stating that it was a setup staged event which might even include the assasination of the seven alleged terrorists. Many other claims have been raised by these sources.

Most of these attempt to point to ETA's participation in the attacks or try to accuse Police of meddling with evidence. No material evidence has been uncovered so far to support any of these claims. Critics of what they label as conspiracy theories, in return, say that all of the detractors of the judicial investigation have strong partisan and possibly commercial interests which are advanced by making the above mentioned claims.

This text, I propose, should be moved to "controversies" and discussed there to leave a mininum of controversial material in the core article:

• If you talk about "conspiracy theories" then I should point that "conspiranoics" also say that "officialists" support a conspiracy theory.
• If you talk about "strong partisan interests" of "conspiranoics" I should talk about the plitical interests of "officialists"...

...really, I think that it´s much better to leave that dispute to the "controversies" article.

• BTW, No material evidence has been uncovered... is flagrant POV

Other objections:

• The detailing of which sources say this or that should be made in the "Controversies" article, I propose. That would be much neater. Moreover: The situation can change in the future. For instance: El Mundo can publish an article expressing doubts about Leganés. We are trying to reach a (more or less) stable core article.

• "Attemped to dispute". That´s nonsense. They DISPUTED such and such. If the dispute is founded or not is a different issue, but that "attemped" is out of place.

• The Vallecas bag is THE MAIN EXHIBIT. Without the SIM card of the TRIUM cell phone inside that bag you have no case.

• "The Leganés suicide" is POV. Wikipedia can not say that such or such other thing happened or not. Wikipedia only can say that source A says "suicide" and source B says "suicide unlikely". "Leganés events" is NPOV.

• "Staged event" is more specific than "setup"...I made "setups" in my computer. I make no "staged events".

"Additionally, there is strong controversy over the events immediately following the bombings and preceding the general elections which took place three days later. In particular, the role of the government, political parties and media shaping public opinion during those days is hotly debated. More detailed discussion of these issues can be found in the article Controversies concerning the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings."

This piece of text is perfect. As far as I am concerned we can stop talking about this piece of text. We reached a consensus.

Congratulations, Larean. Seems that we are going somewhere, finally.

---

Southofwatford 18:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC) The conspiracy theorists may have gained one doubter but it looks like they have lost El Mundo - who said that GOMA-2 was not the explosive used in the bombings?

"La Operación Pipol se cerró en julio de 2001 con la incautación de más de 86 kilos de hachís, casi tres kilos de cocaína y otras sustancias alucinógenas, así como de 16 cartuchos de Goma-2, como la utilizada en los atentados del 11-M, y 94 detonadores industriales."[5]

That's one journalist that won't be getting a Christmas bonus from Pedro Jota!

More seriously, if the objections I raised yesterday are rejected for inclusion in this paragraph, then I return to the suggestion I made - that we reduce this paragraph to eliminate sources of controversy. I do not see the use of the word attempted as being NPOV, saying that the conspiracy theorists have disputed the key evidence suggests they have an alternative explanation - we have the accusations but we don't have the explanation. Therefore, in the absence of the explanation, we can only say they are attempting to dispute this evidence. I also don't see it as POV to point out that all this is not some kind of spontaneous expression of doubt, we should be able to make clear the many links that exist between the different media involved - otherwise readers might wrongly get the impression that this has just been a few determined journalists poking away at the evidence, and not forming part of a coordinated political campaign between like-minded organisations. If all this is for the controversies page, then so are the statements that the genuineness of the key evidence is disputed.

---

Randroide 10:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC) Southofwatford wrote: I do not see the use of the word attempted as being NPOV, saying that the conspiracy theorists have disputed the key evidence suggests they have an alternative explanation - we have the accusations but we don't have the explanation.

Again, and again, and again:

• If I "dispute" your explanation of Santa Claus placing gifts under my Christmas tree every year, I am not obliged to explain and to prove who placed there the gifts: My pa, my ma, my aunt, my uncle or, who knows, the tooth fairy..
• Likewise, if "el Mundo" "disputes" the explanations given by the Indictment about what happened, "El Mundo" has no obligation whatsoever to give alternative explanations about what really happened.

Southofwatford wrote: we should be able to make clear the many links that exist between the different media involved - otherwise readers might wrongly get the impression that this has just been a few determined journalists poking away at the evidence, and not forming part of a coordinated political campaign between like-minded organisations.

Those links exist also linking different media defending the Indictment, and, yes, these defenders of the indictment also have a political campaign of their own. I suggest to reserve all that s**t for the "controversies" page.

Southofwatford wrote: If all this is for the controversies page, then so are the statements that the genuineness of the key evidence is disputed.

We are trying to achieve a core article with the less undisputed facts the better.

If you want to include in the core article more than the minimum of disputed facts from the defenders of the indictment you have a right to do so, but I have also the right to invoke NPOV and to introduce too the rebuttal from the doubters of the indictment.

---

Randrioide wrote "If I "dispute" your explanation of Santa Claus placing gifts under my Christmas tree every year, I am not obliged to explain and to prove who placed there the gifts: My pa, my ma, my aunt, my uncle or, who knows, the tooth fairy..

• Likewise, if "el Mundo" "disputes" the explanations given by the Indictment about what happened, "El Mundo" has no obligation whatsoever to give alternative explanations about what really happened.

"

Southofwatford 18:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC) If you dispute my explanation without making any attempt to offer another explanation then what you say is true. Unfortunately this is not the case with El Mundo, Losantos and del Pino, they make accusations which they refuse to back up with any kind of solid evidence. So therefore they attempt to dispute - we could always exchange dispute for insinuate, then I will drop my request to qualify it.

---

--Larean01 17:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The authorship of the bombings remains controversial in Spain. Part of the Partido Popular (PP), now in opposition, as well as several media close to that party point to alleged inconsistencies and contradictions in the Spanish judiciary investigation. These sources, along with several Internet blogs and Websites, put into question the genuineness of one of the main exhibits that led to the first arrests, the Vallecas bag, hinting more or less openly at a coverup to mislead the judges and the public about the true authors and their motivations. The Leganés events have also been disputed, with some media stating that it was a setup staged event which might even include the assasination of the seven alleged terrorists. Many other claims have been raised by these sources, trying to either link ETA to the attacks or accuse the Police of evidence tampering. Critics of these sources have in turn put into question their objectivity, raising accusations of partisanship and sensationalism.

Rationale:

1) I concur with Southofwatford: it is necessary to point out the linkage between the media and the PP. Otherwise, as he points out, and especially given the tradition of objectivity in Anglosaxon journalism, the reader might think these are independent journalists. They are not.

2) I think "put into question" is neutral and covers Southofwatford's objections.

3) Qualifying as "the main exhibit" the Vallecas bag is POV. There of course is a case without the bag, as there are many other exhibits, including DNA samples, fingerprints, the AVE bomb, computer records, phone call records, testimonies, videos, detonators, etc. not to mention the only final sentence so far, which condemns el Gitanillo and thus considers proven the dynamite trafficking with Asturias. Don't confuse "the decisive evidence which led to the arrests" with "the main exhibit for convicting the criminals in trial". They are two different things.

4) I think it is important to specify the intent of the claims (trying to link ETA, etc).

5) The last sentence is provided for balance, as there are critics of the conspirationists whose existence must be noted. I tried to make it NPOV. Concerning sources I don't know if De Diego or Gozalbo qualify as blogs. They both publish op-eds in online newspapers, Periodista Digital and Hispalibertas, respectively. At any rate, there is Zarzalejos in ABC, and De Diego is deputy director of Época, so he might have something there too, in print.

6) I have no objection to "staged event", although "setup" means the same to me in a criminal context. I have no objection to Leganes events either.

7) I have eliminated it, but it is a fact there is no material evidence. If you disagree, point out one piece of evidence which could be included in an indictment.

P.S. Thanks for the kudos. :-)

---

Randroide 10:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

1) Your demand is rational, but then mention should also be made to the PSOE links with the media defending the Indictment. Again: I suggest to move that s**t to the controversies article. If you disagree (and you have the right to disagree), ALL the s**t will be present in the (not so) "core" article.

2) Yes, it´s neutral. I accept that expression.

3) AFAIK, witouth Vallecas bag there is no way of linking those exhibits you talk about with the persons linked with the SIM card in the cellphone inside the bag. DNA samples and fingerprints are totally useless without some idea about who culd be a suspect. Please correct me if I am wrong.

4) I agree with you.

5) Could you please reserve that for the "controversies" article?. Would you accept in the main article a sourced reference about PSOE carnet holder Gotzone Mora supporting the doubters of the indictment?. I suggest to put all that sourced information in an specific sub-section in "controversies".

6) Good. I think that "sub-compact", or "limousine" or "F1 car" gives you more information than the perfectly correct "automobile". I prefer to be specific.

7)[6]

--- --Larean01 13:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I eliminate points of agreement, waiting for Southofwatford's position:

1) ABC does not have any PSOE links. Neither does Hispalibertas or Época. Neither does Arcadi Espada. And the indictment is defended by its author, a judge named under PP rule, and upheld by the court (Audiencia Nacional), none of them with manifest links to the PSOE. It has also been defended by Police with no manifest links, etc. Your statement would therefore be inaccurate.

3) DNA samples are linked to people. Fingerprints are linked to people. Those fingerprints and DNA samples place the accused parties in sites in which other incriminating material is found (fundamentalist documents, detonators, explosives, even further targets). There are also testimonies about the Asturias connection which squarely put Ahmidan in contact with Trashorras, including the only final sentence so far (el Gitanillo's). Take out the Vallecas bag if you will, all of this stands as evidence and, I am sure, is more than enough to convict the accused. Note that I will not embark on whether this other evidence is real or fake. I just say that the notion that all the case rests on a single piece of evidence is inaccurate.

5) I am not being specific, so the mention to Mora is out of place. I just want to point out there are other players, other opinions, in the media, aside from the conspiracy ones. The way you want to leave the paragraph it would seem there are only two players: the judiciary/government on one side and "several media" on the other. I contend this does not give an accurate description of the real situation, leaving out all the critics of conspiracy theories, and in particular the critics I mention from the Right.

7) You have got to be kidding. The presence of boric acid is material evidence linking ETA to 11-M? Please. Try to defend that in front of a court. Alternatively, please explain why three different instances have considered the "evidence" irrelevant (Section Four of Criminal Court, Audiencia Nacional, which did not incorporate it to the summary; Presidency of Criminal Court, which decided no terrorist-related crime had been committed concerning the alleged forgery of that document; judge Garzón, who concluded boric acid has never been used in Spain by terrorists).

---

Southofwatford 18:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

1). As Larean01 correctly points out, it's simply not true that all or even most of those who defend the indictment are linked to the PSOE. The point I was making, and which remains valid, is that this is an organised campaign - that is the context in which it takes place. I also made the point that the core of the media groups involved do not just share common positions, they are interconnected because they employ or pay the same people. I am not saying that all of this has to be explained in the main article, but it is reasonable to make clear the connections that exist.

3). The idea that the entire case rests on the Vallecas bag is wishful thinking. The case for the bag being planted has yet to be made - but here we have the now traditional difference between the standard of proof the conspiracy theorists demand of the indictment, and the way in which they make wild accusations without a single scrap of positive evidence.

5). If we are going to include a reference to the claims on ETA, it is balanced to point out that there are those who have no anti-PP bias yet point to the political motivations behind these claims.

7). I can't believe it. Insecticide found in a house in Lanzarote occupied by someone accused of involvement in the bombings is the material evidence! Leaving aside, of course, the conspiracy theorists accusation that these people were not capable of carrying out the bombings anyway. I hope you can assure us, Randroide, that you have no products containing Boric Acid at home. Otherwise, you are directly linked to ETA.

---

Randroide 10:40, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

1)

• w:es:PRISA...all that "PRISAic" media is a single complex, also known as "Matrix" by detractors: "SER", "El País", "Localia"... PRISA simpathy towards the PSOE does not need to be documented, I hope.

• "La Razón" recently ( published analysis of news in "ABC" and "El País" hinting at the same person writing the articles in both newspapers. Federico Jiménez Losantos calls "ABC" "el paisín" ("the little El País") or "El País II".

• "La Vanguardia" relations with catalonian nationalist interests, who took enormous advantage of the 2004 PSOE victory, is also well known...

Of course that it also must be told that the directors of "El Mundo" and "La Razón" are regular guests in Federico Jiménez Losantos radio program, that Losantos writes a regular column in "El Mundo", that Losantos was invited as a guest to José María Aznar home while he was president (see Losantos´ latest book)... but this kind of relationships of friendship, common values and common interests ALSO are present "in the other side" of this issue.

I suggest, again, to write a "who is who" in "Controversies". The doubters of the indictment are NOT totally different, totally independent media sources, and, yes, they have political interests in their investigations. Yes, you are right.... but just the same can be said about the defenders of the Indictment.

3) AFAIK, without Vallecas bag you have no case [7]. All the subsequent evidences (DNA, fingerprints there and there...) are mere consequences of following the trail of the Vallecas bag. No Vallecas bag, no SIM card, no trail, no nothing.

If you have sources arguing the opposite, please present those sources here.

5) Yes: There are basically two players: Those who say that the Indictment is airtight and those who claim that it is not. If you want to introduce in the (not so) "core" article sourced comments about the allegued intentions of the second group you are free to do so, just as free as me to introduce the same kind of material about the first group.

Again: I suggest to move all that c**p to the "Controversies" page.

7) The borax issue is not a proof of ETA implication (just as neither the quranic tape in the Kangoo is a proof of "islamist" implication). "El Mundo" never said it is. "El Mundo" simply said that it is a material proof of a falsification of an official police report to delete a reference to ETA in the Indictment.

---

--Larean01 12:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

1) That PRISA is close to the PSOE is a fact. The rest of your argumentation is especulation. "Hinting" is not enough for me. What that portent of objectivity called Losantos calls somebody is irrelevant. I can't believe that you fail to acknowledge the OTHER fact: ABC is squarely opposed to the PSOE and the government. So is Época. So is Hispalibertas. And the judiciary involved have no known political sympathies. You simply cannot reduce this to a pro-government/anti-government confrontation, because that is simply not true.

3) Aside from the fact that I have no case in favour or against anything (at any rate the case is the prosecution's, not ours), you still fail to recognise the difference between "piece of evidence which leads to others pieces of evidence", which is part of an investigation, and "critical evidence without which the whole case tumbles", which is part of the trial. What you may say is that without the bag the investigation would have been more complex (although the Kangoo detonators had already led to Trashorras; he was being questioned as early as the 12th, when the confirmation came in form of the detonator and dynamite in the Vallecas bag). That has very little to do with what evidence is relevant in the trial, as the Vallecas bag was NOT obtained illegally and thus cannot compromise the legality of other pieces of evidence.

5) No, that is not correct. There are people who defend the indictment, people who attack it, and people who attack the arguments of the attackers, something which a priori is not the same as defending the indictment. I have said many times that I do not defend the indictment per se. I defend the capacity of the Spanish legal system to find the truth, on one hand; on the other, I attack the numerous fallacies in the conspiracy theories. You are failing to see the basic distinction between claiming X is true and claiming that not(X) has not been proven.

7) OK, so you recognise it does not link ETA to 11-M. That was my point: You have no material evidence linking ETA to 11-M.

Now, whether this was a forgery to wilfully delete a relevant reference to ETA is not a fact. The only judicial document so far states it is not. You might want to wait for a judge's decision before making categorical statements such as this one.

P.S. I have accepted most of your changes, and it seems Southofwatford has done the same. Please consider our points in that light.

---

Southofwatford 16:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

1). It is grossly misleading to try and pretend that the content of El País and ABC is the same. But then given the sources provided (Losantos and La Razon), it's hardly surprising to see such strange conclusions. Any media that refuses to accept the conspiracy theories just gets put into the same sack. The irony, for those of us who know Spain, is seeing many of the most right-wing people in the country attacking ABC, which has of course traditionally been a bastion of conservative politics. All this of course gets confused with El Mundo's circulation war with ABC - I saw on the El Mundo front page the other day that they were boasting about how much their circulation had risen while ABC's had gone down. ABC is their rival at the moment, which explains many of the attacks against it. Once again we see the commercial side of the conspiracy theories.

3). I agree completely with Larean01, the idea that the case depends on the Vallecas bag owes much more to desire than fact. In any case we are still waiting for evidence that it was planted - I suspect we have a long wait ahead of us.

5). I do not see myself as a defender of the indictment, and my case against the conspiracy theories is not based around the indictment. I am quite prepared to accept the possibility that wrong accusations can be made against innocent people, or that governments attempt to make political use of terrorist acts. However, in this particular case the conspiracy theories have been designed to try and protect the reputation of a government that attempted to abuse the issue of terrorism for its own advantage, and I'm not just referring to the Madrid bombings - the exploitation of terrorism for political benefit was, in my opinion, a key part of the culture of Aznar's administration. That's why ETA has to be involved in any way possible, regardless of whether there is any real evidence or not. The case against the conspiracy theories is that they form part of a politically motivated campaign seeking revenge for an election defeat and the accusation that the government at the time lied about the authorship of the bombings. It's very easy to invent conspiracy theories, especially when those suspected of carrying out the action are dead. Anyone can play at doing what Luis del Pino does. They do not depend on the indictment, nor do those who point out the total lack of evidence supporting them need to be ardent defenders of everything in the indictment. There is no equivalent campaign on the other side, those who oppose the conspiracy theories cover the whole political spectrum, they do not form a cohesive bloc - and they do not share the same opinions about everything.

7). The boric acid case is a perfect demonstration of what I have written above. The most tenuous possible link to ETA becomes transformed into material evidence. It's simply not true, Randroide, to say that El Mundo has not claimed a relationship between ETA and the Madrid bombings based on this report. The fact that the claim is false does not prevent its frequent repetition.

The "socialisation of doubt" is never the motive of genuine investigative reporting, or for those who seek to know the truth. It is a political objective which attempts to discredit someone else's theory of events. But that objective is what Luis del Pino and other conspiracy theorists use to measure their success. Pretending that there is no political background behind these "questions" about the bombings is not NPOV, it is simply misleading. If we have to misrepresent reality to avoid controversy then we need to drop the references that cause the problem.

---

Randroide 09:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

1) I give my answer below, in the reply to Igor21 and Larean.

3) It´s not me, "El País" said that the bag is the main exhibit. But if you prefer to call it "one of the main exhibits", I am not going to argue more about this issue.

5) Political interpretations: I respect your opinions, but you are wasting your time arguing with me. Please find a source, write a NPOV text, discuss and insert in the main article.

7) The important thing about the borax issue is not the ETA link, but the fact that the official report was falsified.

Larean wrote: You have no material evidence linking ETA to 11-M.

I never said I had such evidence. Ditto for "El Mundo".

BTW, you neither have material evidence linking the islamists to 11-M. Remenber: It is official: We still do not know which kind of explosives went off in the trains.

Southofwatford wrote: It's very easy to invent conspiracy theories, especially when those suspected of carrying out the action are dead

I agree 100% with you. The official conspiracy theory puts the blame mainly on dead individuals, individuals that can not talk, defend themselves or be judged. Very convenient. And those individuals died, we are told, in very strange circumstances: The Leganés events.

---

--Larean01 16:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

1) Ditto. Answered below.

3) So? Circumstantial ad hominem. What El Pais says is immaterial. The truth is that the prosecution would stand even without the bag.

5) My answer is no political interpretation.

7) I love the way you blindly trust Pedro Jota. How do you know the official report was forged in the first place? You cannot even prove the draft was an official document at any point! But the fact is that you don't have any material evidence linking ETA to 11-M, which is what I requested from you. Now you claim otherwise, but let me reconstruct the exchange.

a) I write: "there is no material evidence" linking ETA to 11-M

b) You say it is POV.

c) I ask you to show the material evidence if you think otherwise.

d) As your only answer, you produce the boric acid document with no other remarks.

Please, Randroide, we are grownups here. I will not press the point, but don't tell me you didn't claim what you did claim. I am not stupid.

Let's continue. You say: "I never said I had such evidence. Ditto for "El Mundo"." Wrong and easily disproved. El Mundo's headline: "Interior falsificó un informe que planteaba vínculos entre ETA y el 11-M antes de enviárselo a Del Olmo"

Finally, talking about "official conspiracy theory" is a very disingenous and disappointing way to try to put down the indictment. Can you tell me how the indictment "attempts to explain the ultimate cause of an event (usually a political, social, or historical event) as a secret, and often deceptive, plot by a covert alliance of powerful people or organizations rather than as an overt activity or as natural occurrence" ([conspiracy theory])?

Archived and changed to High Importance

Even though it is labeled as a Train Project, it is a high importance subject despite not being important for train enthusiast; it's a high importance on the political scale even though there is no matching Project.

Note: Please keep this page archived when it passed 100K or so, because it's getting terribly long and pages of this site can cause problems with some browsers. Dr Debug (Talk) 13:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

No limits

Someone who says that news in ABC and EL PAIS are written by the same hand is either a compulsive liar or a totally mad chap. Now we know that there is no limit in the delirium.--Igor21 15:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Randroide 18:11, 27 October 2006 (UTC) One moth ago a journalist published in "La Razón" a rather extensive (a full page with some photographic evidence) analysis comparing texts about the 11-M from "ABC" and "El País", and pointing to tremendous similarities, just as if the same person was writing the texts in both newspapers.

Most unfortunately I lack your indepth knowledge about the psychiatric condition of the journalist who wrote that text: "Delirium", "compulsive liar"...

Your interventions are always the same, Igor21. No sources, no arguments, no nothing. And this time, LIBEL against a journalist. I suggest you to start working on this article, just like Larean. We do not need to agree to work together. Thank you.

---

--Larean01 18:58, 27 October 2006 (UTC) Please provide the source. At any rate, the point does not matter. What matters is that ABC remains in almost everything squarely against the government. I hope you are not implying that ABC is aligned with the PSOE. Calling ABC "El Paisillo" reveals that either Losantos has become delusional or that he has an absolute disregard for the truth.

It is sad that this "journalist" limits himself to EL PAIS and ABC. If he had compared any reliable source in the world, he would have discovered that the whole planet thinks the same. I know that for some people this is very suspicious of all the planet being in the conspiracy but perhaps some of the readers would have understood the hidden truth. Is like the joke of the guy in the motorway going in the wrong direction. He hears on the radio : "There is a mad driver in the motorway" and he says "one?... all of them are mad". So yes Randroide, this conspiracy has no limits and everybody -except a handful of Mesiah- are involved. All the newspapers in the world except two (in fact one and a half) are written by the same evil hand. May I suggest Fu-Man-Chu as a candidate? I will look for sources and come back later.--Igor21 19:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

---

Randroide 08:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC) Larean, Igor21: We are not here to evaluate the estimations made by sources or to discuss our viewpoints. We are here to reflect what the sources say.

• If you have sources (lets say an editorial in "El País") saying that the different doubters of the Indictment are in fact a single entity with hidden and devious intentions, that should be reflected.
• I have sources (an extensive article in "La Razón") saying that, regarding the 11-M, "ABC" seems now to be an appendix to "El País"...the 36% of readers loss that the "ABC" suffered in september 2006 is a clear signal that the readers of that newspaper think that there is something wrong.

I have not the source here, I must go back to the public library to re-locate (in the pile of september 2006) the article and take photocopies. Too bad I did not take photocopies the day I saw it!. I went to the public library only to know if "La Razón" could be included in the Doubters of the Indictment (yes, it can), and the named article was a serendipitous finding.

Do you think that the affirmation made by "La Razón" is nonsense?. You have the right to think that, but again, again and again: The thinking of the editors is irrelevant, only sources count. If you disagree with "La Razón", the right thing to do is to find a source disputing the affirmation made by that newspaper. Have a nice weekend.

---

Southofwatford 10:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC) Randrioide, you are reviving a discussion we have already had at great length. We are not just here to reflect what sources say, editors of Wikipedia articles are not robots controlled by their sources. We are here to put together an article appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopaedia - your insistence that it is only the sources that decide the content is a convenient fig leaf for the attempt to use (abuse) this article as a political platform for the conspiracy theorists. If you didn't have your sources in El Mundo, I am sure your argument would be very different.

---

Randroide : Are you asking us to find a source that says that all the newspapers are not written by the same hand? I would wish to do so but unfortunately, once Losantos and Del PIno have reached this hyperspace of delirium where they are now, nobody can follow them so there are no more sources from here to Nirvana. Currently, only Lauren01 and Southofwatford have the bonhomnie of answering such nutty extravanzas as if were serious subjects. I warned you long ago that if you keep reading toxic sources, you would fall in a state of mental confusion and fluctuating consciousness and I fear that this has finally happened. --Igor21 15:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

---

--Larean01 16:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Strawman: I have not said they all form a single entity. I say they are close to the PP, as El Pais is close to the PSOE. This is hardly news to you, I hope. And at any rate, they do have significant relationships. Telemadrid is government-owned in an autonomy governed by the PP. Hopefully I do not need to prove that. El Mundo and COPE/LD are related by the fact that Pedro J. Ramírez is a participant in the COPE talk shows and Jiménez Losantos has an op-ed column in El Mundo. Hopefully I do not need to prove that either. At any rate, my sources that criticise the conspiracy theorists are not El País (though it could be). It's ABC, Hispalibertas, Época's deputy director writing in Periodista Digital. Media close to the PP, not the PSOE.

Concerning ABC's loss of readership: argumentum ad populum. What people think about the paper's editorial line is immaterial.

Concerning La Razón's claim: first, you have downgraded it significantly (seems an appendix is very different from "the same person writes in both places"). What is important is the facts. ABC is in the ideological antipodes of El Pais. ABC does not support the government in anything. ABC is today as conservative as it has always been. I will not accept a characterisation of ABC as being close to the government as it is simply public and notorious, as we say in Spain, that that is not the case.

At any rate, I concur with Southofwatford. Your blind trust in sources is not only misplaced, it is NOT Wikipedia policy as far as I have read. Wikipedia policy asks for good judgement to be used assessing your sources. Your argument that anything goes as long as it is published somewhere does not hold water. Imagine I now quote a newspaper which makes a glaring mistake, let's say, it says that Pluto is 100 million km. from the Sun. You point out that this is a obvious mistake which cannot be included in a Wikipedia article. I defend myself saying that it is in print, and therefore I have a right to state that Pluto is closer to the Sun than the Earth itself. See the absurdity? Wikipedia policies are common-sense guidelines. They are not a Gospel that you can use, as Southofwatford says, to further a political agenda.

Again, I have conceded several points to you. But if you keep being as stubborn about absurd points such as these I will have to withdraw my concessions, made in the good spirit of making progress, and go back to my initial writing.

Sorry, Wikipedia´s Neighborhood watch consumed my time

Randroide 09:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Larean wrote: I will not accept a characterisation of ABC as being close to the government

You´ll have to accept what sources say, just as I. This is NOT a factual issue, this is a published personal opinion issue.

• Source A publishes the opinion that ABC is the same newspaper as is has always been, Source B publishes (see below an example) just the opposite opinion. You have to accept both versions.
• Source A publishes that "El Mundo" is publishing research about the 11-M, source B (lets say "El País") publishes that "El Mundo" is part of a "extreme right" conspiracy to destroy Zapatero. I have to accept both sources.

Just an example: October 29th 2006 "El Mundo", page 8, w:es:Luis María Anson, CEO of "ABC" from 1983 to 1998, says:

"Juan Antonio Bardem filmó una parte de su última película Resultado Final en mi despacho del ABC verdadero"

You see: This man, the CEO of ABC during 15 years, calls his newspaper ("La Razón") "the genuine ABC".

My argumentum ad populum is totally relevant in this context. We are talking about influence in the conservative arena, and the fact is that a lot of conservative readers are migrating from ABC to La Razón, just as conservative listeners migrated from Antena 3 to the COPE in 1993.

A newspaper like ABC that loses a third of its readers in just a month is losing influence at high speed.

Another example: Federico Jiménez Losantos accuses (talking about the 11-M) ABC of making "the dirty job of Polanco" Almost at the end.

You can disagree with FJL, but if you want to introduce opinions against FJL (and you have the right to do so), FJL´s opinions against his detractors are also legitimate.

I see as a legitimate demand to ask for some background to english readers of "Controversies about the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings" about who is who in spanish media, but you should accept the fact that accusations fly in both directions: From defenders of the Indictment to doubters of the Indictments, AND vice versa.

---

Southofwatford 11:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC) Any neutral observer of the Spanish media would see ABC as being a conservative newspaper, regardless of whether it is seen by some on the political right as being sufficiently conservative or not. Anson and Losantos are not going to be considered as neutral observers by anyone, and a neutral observer would also not use support for the conspiracy theories as the criteria for deciding whether a paper is conservative or not.

At least now we are basing our assessment of a newspaper’s political position on what they currently publish, rather than what they were publishing 5 or 10 years ago (as with the attempt to present El Mundo as not being a right-wing paper). There is no doubt that El Mundo is currently engaged in a circulation war with ABC, their own references to their circulation figures use ABC’s figures as their comparison – and the ranting against ABC of people like Losantos and Anson (both of whom write for El Mundo) undoubtedly has much to do with this.

We do not need to dedicate much space to this in the main article but it does provide part of the context for the emergence of the conspiracy theories. It is also interesting because it emphasises the commercial motives behind the promoters of the conspiracy theories, they are making a lot of money out of this operation. We just need to find the neutral wording to describe that context, how would a decent journalist from the Guardian or the New York Times sum this up in a single paragraph?

---

Randroide 15:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Southofwatford wrote: Anson and Losantos are not going to be considered as neutral observers by anyone

As "neutral" as "El País" or Enrique de Diego, of course.

Southofwatford wrote: (as with the attempt to present El Mundo as not being a right-wing paper). There is no doubt that El Mundo is currently engaged in a circulation war with ABC

Image:Emmanuelle primo 4.jpg Southofwatford says that "El Mundo" is engaged in a "circulation war" with "ABC".TOTAL NONSENSE: ABC buyers are highly conservative catholic folks, while "El Mundo" publishes pictures like this in the cover of its sunday supplement.

A very , very strange circulation war, indeed. Just two examples:

• Last sunday "El Mundo" sunday supplement included an interview with Silvia Krystel, with a picture of this woman taken from Emmanuelle (the famous bamboo chair picture, and that in the cover of the magazine) and a catalogue of sexual props from different "spicy" pictures, from the honey of 9½ Weeks to the bamboo chair from Emmanuelle.
• Today "El Mundo" includes an article about lesbian cinema [8].

And you suggest that "El Mundo" is engaged in a circulation war with the highly conservative traditional buyer of ABC. Gimme a break, please!!!.

Southofwatford wrote: We do not need to dedicate much space to this in the main article

Y suggest to dedicate NO space to this issue in the main article. I suugest to leave the whole issue to Controversies about the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings.

Southofwatford wrote: It is also interesting because it emphasises the commercial motives behind the promoters of the conspiracy theories, they are making a lot of money out of this operation.

The defenders of the Indictment are also making a lot of money AND power: They won the 2004 elections thanks to the "Islamist" version of what happened.

---

Southofwatford 16:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC) The simple fact is Randroide, despite all your noise and diversionary tactics, that the other day in the printed edition of El Mundo the boasts on circulation figures contained on the front page made comparison with one, and only one, other newspaper - ABC. They weren't comparing themselves to El País, La Razon, or any other.

Perhaps you think the PP flies or ships hundreds of its members to Mallorca to demonstrate in favour of Pedro Jota's illegal swimming pool because they admire his centrist politics? Perhaps Pedro Jota speaks at PP congresses because he despises their conservative politics?

On the question of money, nobody that I know of has sought to profit from the tragedy in the same way as the conspiracy theorists, with their carefully programmed publication of "revelations", and their books launched to coincide with this campaign.

BTW - it appears that it is not just the events of 11th March that have been manipulated by El Mundo, they also manipulate their sales figures too - as explained here [[9]]

---

Randroide 17:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC) I see no manipulation at all in the interesting link you gently provided:

Una vez más explicamos que la OJD mide ejemplares efectivamente distribuidos y vendidos. Los datos presentados en esta oportunidad corresponden a los periódicos con los que efectivamente se quedan los lectores, aunque no discrimina si es mediante venta en kiosco, por suscripciones o por distribución gratuita mediante promociones. Precisamente El Mundo reivindica la venta en kiosco como su principal baluarte frente a sus competidores, un número que no se ha dado a concoer en esta oportunidad por la OJD.

"El Mundo" simply counts the number of sold newspapers, discarding newspapers given as a gift.

Southwatford wrote: The simple fact is Randroide, despite all your noise and diversionary tactics...

If you regard the presentation of facts and arguments " noise and diversionary tactics", that´s your problem with logic and with reality, Southofwatford.

Southwatford wrote: the other day in the printed edition of El Mundo the boasts on circulation figures contained on the front page made comparison with one, and only one, other newspaper - ABC. They weren't comparing themselves to El País, La Razon, or any other.

Provide me the exact date, please. I MUST go to the library to check that highly interesting piece of information.

Pedro J. was a political enemy of Aznar during the 2003 invasion of Iraq (just as he was with González during the 1991 Gulf war). Is a total nonsense to try to present him as a PP creature.

Southwatford wrote: On the question of money, nobody that I know of has sought to profit from the tragedy in the same way as the conspiracy theorists, with their carefully programmed publication of "revelations", and their books launched to coincide with this campaign.

Status: False. Zapatero won the 2004 elections thanks to the 11-M.

---

Southofwatford 07:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC) Here we go again, further evidence that what matters most to the conspiracy theorists is March 14th, the day of the elections - not March 11th. Winning an election is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, despite the circumstances in which it took place; it is a result of one party receiving more votes than another. Designing conspiracy theories for commercial benefit and to try and discredit the legitimacy of that democratic election is not the same thing - there is simply no comparison here, unless you believe that the PSOE helped to organise the bombings. But then someone might ask you for some evidence and we know you don't like that, so I won't ask again.

I can't remember exactly which day El Mundo published the piece on their sales figures, I saw it in the PDF edition of their front page - but I'm sure if you check the editions for the last week you will manage to find it.

You cannot say anything on El Mundo's political stance without going back to the past. Even the fact of opposing the Iraq war does not turn El Mundo into a centrist or left wing paper, there were right wingers who also opposed the war. The facts are these - Pedro jota now speaks at PP conferences and his paper now follows the line of the hard right faction of the PP on key issues. That is why they fly hundreds of their militants out to support him in Mallorca, unless you are going to suggest this service is available to anyone who has a legal problem with their swimming pool?

Well don't say I don't do anything to help you - I've just saved you another trip to the library. The front page item on October 24th makes reference to no other paper except ABC - the full article referenced here is almost entirely about ABC compared to El Mundo:

[[10]]

---

Randroide 19:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC) Thank you very much, Southofwatford. It´s the good thing of Wikipedia: You always learn something new. The sole reference to ABC can be explained because is the newspaper that lost more readers in the reported time span.

---

Southofwatford 10:46, 5 November 2006 (UTC) Frankly Randriode, even if the headline said "El Mundo competes directly with ABC" you would still probably deny what they are doing. Your interpretation could be correct, but another interpretation exists and is equally or more reasonable - that which says that an article by a newspaper where it compares its sales entirely in relation to another newspaper is probably motivated by competition between those two newspapers.

---

Let's use an accepted model

Dear friends : I have been kindly requested by an administrator of the site to use my knowledge of this subject constructively. I think it is clear that we are completely stack and we cannot continue in the way we were following since Randroide has shown that he do not agree with the official version in anything at all. This is fully legitimate

I have went to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11-S article to see how there has been managed the controversy. I think that since that event is very similar and it was much more important in number of dead people and in international relevance it should be the model. What has been done there is to explain at length the official version and then there is an article were all the conspirationists are named one by one with a comment of his area of disagreement with the official version and links are provided to their own works that are considered primary sources.

It is clear that El Mundo is doing Original research so it must be considered a primary source. Moreover, since is clearly -as Southofwatford has shown extensively and as it is common knowledge between present editors (3 to 4) - it is a partisan source (see Partisan Websites in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources), so it cannot be considered a secondary source as it is required for contibuting to the official version.

To divide the work following our areas of expertise, I suggest that Southofwatford, Larean01 and me work in the official version while Randroide makes the list of the conspirationist and the resumees of the position of each one.--Igor21 13:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

---

Randroide 18:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC) The model you are proposing is totally irrelevant here, Igor21.

The BIG difference: The doubters of the 11-M Indictment are publishing their doubts in major media, doubters of the 11-S are not. According with your logic, the Watergate scandal should also be called a "Conspiracy Theory".

"El Mundo" is just as "partisan" as "El País". If you want to try to convince administrators that the second and fourth spanish newspapers are "partisan sources", go ahead, but you are going to waste your time.

I also suggest you to stop talking about the "official version" (that expression is disliked by Southofwatford) and "conspirationists" (disliked by me). "Supporters of the Indictment" and "doubters of the Indictment" is neutral terminology that is disliked by no one. Of course that you can do as you please, but politeness is important to reach a good atmosphere.

Your proposed division of work is a very good idea.

---

Southofwatford 15:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC) The fact that the conspiracy theories appear in major media makes absolutely no difference - things do not become true, or even more credible, just because a big selling newspaper decides it is in their interest to publish them. The idea that something ceases to be a conspiracy theory because a major newspaper prints it is frankly bizarre and fits with no definition of a conspiracy theory that I have seen. The "big difference" between Watergate and what El Mundo is doing is that the Washington Post did not have to manipulate facts, invent bogus experts, or alter witness statements to try and establish their case - El Mundo has done all of these. That is a big difference.

"Supporters of the indictment" and "doubters of the indictment" is neither neutral nor accurate. We have already established in previous discussions that those who oppose the conspiracy theories are not necessarily doing so because they support everything in the indictment. Meanwhile, those who believe the Spanish government conspired with ETA to organise the bombings are not just "doubting the indictment", they are promoting a conspiracy theory - without providing evidence to back it up. All of those involved with Luis del Pino's blog are firm supporters of these conspiracy theories, as even a brief examination of the comments on the blog demonstrates. It is disingenuous to pretend that these people are just "doubting" the indictment. In fact I have not come across anyone who doubts the indictment and who rejects the conspiracy theories - who are these people?

---

Outside comments

I don't see the relevance to debating whether a newspaper is conducting original research. Any good newspaper employs investigative reporters. The related Wikipedia policy forbids our own contributors from conducting original research, but this is because Wikipedia lacks the comprehensive oversight and and quality control that an established newspaper or other reliable source has. It's also a mistake to term a publication of original research as a primary source. By definition, a primary source is a resource of data upon which synthesis and conclusions may be drawn. That synthesis constitutes a secondary source. Either may be cited in a Wikipedia article, but a Wikipedia article should not depend entirely upon primary sources (because that would pretty much guarantee that the article would violate WP:NOR.

A reliable source's possible editorial bias does not constitute grounds for exclusion as an encyclopedic source. Here's a quick (and possibly incomplete) bullet list for evaluating newspaper bias:

• Is it respected as a newspaper of record?
• Does it have a substantial circulation?
• Does it cover mainstream news events or does it usually focus on celebrity gossip and oddball stories?
• Has it won respected journalism awards?
• Can a Wikipedian's claim that the publication is biased be verified through reliable outside sources?
• If the publication is verifiably biased, one solution is to identify it as such in the article and cite one or more alternate or contrasting sources for balance.
• Overall, do the reliable sources for this subject divide along ideological or other identifiable lines?

As a United States reader, I know what bias to expect from a Wall Street Journal editorial or an article in The New Republic. I don't know what biases prevail at the leading periodicals of Spain and I suspect few native English speakers do. If the publication is something a reasonable person in Spain would examine, don't throw it out - fill me in. Durova 07:20, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

---

Randroide 09:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your guidelines, Durova. I answer your questions, and I also invite to other editors to add additional information or make comments. I do not regard this answers as "my space" (The addition of new lines of text is welcome).

---

* Is it respected as a newspaper of record?

Randroide 09:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC) Well, "El Mundo" uncovered the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación scandal. In fact Pedro J. Ramírez founded "El Mundo" after being expelled from "Diario 16" due to his resolution to do not cover up this issue. Other scoops published in this newspaper:

• The fact that B-52 were refueling and loading bombs to make direct bombings on Iraq from Madrid during the 1991 Gulf War. This was a major scandal in march 1991.
• The plan to send spanish troops to Turkey during that war. Some say that the publication of the plans aborted that mission [11].
• The uncover of the economic corruption networks to finance the PSOE: Filesa, Malesa, Time Export [12].

Southofwatford 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC) The role of El Mundo as sole uncoverer of the GAL is disputed - in fact much of what had happened was known before El Mundo decided to take up the issue. Which is not to say their contribution is not important, just to show that the issue was not their property. "Was respected as a newspaper of record" is a statement I would not dispute.

POSTED BY IGOR21 WHILE UNLOGGED (THIS THINGS HAPPEN) This resumee of Randroide aobut Pedro J Ramirez carreer is rather pedestrian. The real story is that during transition from dictartorship to democracy in the 70's there was an understanding between politicians and journalists. So when PP and PSOE agree in doing dirty war against ETA terrorists in the 80's and following the way things worked at the moment nobody said anything. The judges did some investigation but it was blocked politically. There was a couple of trials and a policeman called Amedo was put in prison as guilty of the whole thing. Everybody knew that he was one amongst many but everybody felt fine. In the begining of the 90's Pedro J Ramirez with a very small group inside the main conservative party (PP) decided to do an assault to power and finish with the hegemony of PSOE. They payed Amedo to confess pressing him with the help of a judge who have been not given a very high post in governement and was extremely upset. In the process of unveiling the governement sponsored terrorism they discovered that the people involved has stolen large amounts of money apart from a lot of corruption. The governement fell and PP took power.

During PP tenure Pedro J has had some quarrels with governement but minor ones and without consequences.

The point is that the 11-march-2004, this fraction of the PP that was in power decided to cover up the fact that the bombing has been done by islamists because the general elections were only three days after and they thought that people will blame them for the bombings because they have sent troops to Irak. The cover up did not work because police worked very fast and found the authors and hundreds of proofs. Pedro J was one of those who participate in the failed cover up.

So PSOE came back to governement and Pedro J and his friends were really upset. They started a campaign which is still working of saying that the PSOE was involved in the bombings so the governement is not legitimate. As Southofwatford has shown extensively this campaign is based in misunderstandings and lies. From USA it is dificult to understand but the PP was convinced that they will win and in fact they loose because their own mistakes so this causes them a sensation of rage that induces this behaviour. It must be said that most part of the PP keeps apart and even those who support the campaign limit themselves to aplaude without saying anything that can be remembered.

So one thing is to do investigative reports that unveil things that are confirmed shortly by new revelations and another is an insidious campaign of half truths that never materialized in nothing and that has a reason in the attempt to cover up the cover up of March 2004..

The key question about this item is that the person who carry out the investigation of GAL (and all the investigative work in El Mundo) were Manuel Cerdan and it is clear the he and his aids have maintained carefully away of this issue because they knew from the begining that there was nothing hidden. So it works all the way round.

El Mundo and Pedro J are a partisan source in this particular issue because they were involved in this from the begining. The fact that its information about sports or international politics are accurate do not stop them of being the inventors and only supporters of these theories who have had NONE evidence to support.

I have a question here. Islamist terrorist is a very important issue in the world ¿why NO other major newspaper in the world doubts about this subject? ¿Why always that people speaks about islamist terrorism they name Madrid amongst the list of crimes of these groups like London, Bali, etc...?

The only reasonable answer is that they know for sure what El Mundo is playing and they do not consider this newspaper as a source. Just a bunch of guys earning money and wasting their reputation in a "cause celebre" that will end at some point. My demand is that wikipedia cannot be cheated by this people. They are doing original research in the sense that their clames have not been proved so they cannot be here at the same level than what all the sources say.

Note : There is a group of activists around a website, a extremely small newspaper called La Razon and a fanatic righ winged with a radio program who also support all this but they live at the shadow of Pedro J and they have not found nothing they have not read in El Mundo.

---

Randroide 19:20, 4 November 2006 (UTC) Igor21 wrote: So when PP and PSOE agree in doing dirty war against ETA terrorists in the 80's and following the way things worked at the moment nobody said anything. The judges did some investigation but it was blocked politically. There was a couple of trials and a policeman called Amedo was put in prison as guilty of the whole thing. Everybody knew that he was one amongst many but everybody felt fine

OK, Igor21. Maybe you felt fine back then. Pedro J. Ramírez was expelled from Diario16 because he did not felt fine with the GAL issue. He insisted in investigate and he was expelled.

• Could you please provide us with a source for your interesting (just imagine my eyebrows raised) affirmation when PP and PSOE agree in doing dirty war against ETA terrorists in the 80's?.
• Igor21 wrote:The judges did some investigation but it was blocked politically. GREAT, you just recognized that spanish judiciary is not an independent power and that is blocked by the executive branch. Thank you very much. We can neither trust spanish judiciary.
• Igor21 wrote:I have a question here. Islamist terrorist is a very important issue in the world ¿why NO other major newspaper in the world doubts about this subject?. Well, they do. Please read Talk:11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings/Proposed additions.
• Igor21 wrote:a extremely small newspaper called La Razon. Well, the extremely small newspaper sold 93538 in august 2006, while ABC sold 127161. It is the fourth spanish newspaper[13], and, seeing the ABC debacle, will be the third in a very short time.

---

Southofwatford 10:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC) The idea that because other newspapers around the world have reported on what is happening they are therefore endorsing El Mundo's objectives and expressing doubts is simply absurd and without foundation.

---

Randroide : We are not discussing about GAL. We can go afterwards to this article and I can show there what happened. I was asked to use my knowledge constructively and this is what I am doing. Pedro J is not a herald of free press but a manipulator that chooses his side without any respect for truth. In GAL affaire he was in the correct side because it happens to be that his enemies were in the wrong one. Now he is in the wrong side because his enemies are in the honourable one. And you have not answered the main question ¿why Cerdan and his team are not working on 11-M and keep apart?

And regarding "investigation" ¿Why this revelations never chain one with the other as happened in GAL, Watergate, Irangate and all the scandals that we have have seen? The Guardian article ¿is the only eco of such an enormous revelation as that 191 innocent people were killed by Spanish police in colaboration with a terrorist group and the main party in opposition? BTW ¿Have you abandoned your thesis that all the newspapers are written by the same hand? ¿Is Durova presence stoping you from the most far fetched parts of your no-ending repertoir?

And finally, if truth is so near to be revealed ¿why you do not write the conspiracionist part of the article and when finally it were discovered you come back to change the main?

What is cristal clear now is that intelligence services are fully convinced that it was done by islamists and the sources that do not accept this cannot be in the main article because they are primary sources unsupported by nobody in the main stream. --Igor21 16:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I forgott to speak about Anson and La Razon. Anson was involved in a attempt of military coup in the 80s. He is very well known for his conspiracies so he feels at ease in this one.--Igor21 18:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

PS : Thanks for signing my post but in the future please wait until I do so. --Igor21 16:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

* Does it have a substantial circulation? Randroide 09:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC) It is the second spanish newspaper on paper [14]

This is the only thing in which El Mundo can be confused with a serious newspaper. However we have in some countries newspapers with enormous figures who are not reliable (and nobody trust because they do the sales by exagerating facts and creating news). --Igor21 18:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

* Does it cover mainstream news events or does it usually focus on celebrity gossip and oddball stories?

Randroide 09:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC) Those oddball stories are reserved to the sunday supplement. The first pages of the paper are reserved to the (sometimes very long) editorial and to the multiple columnists.

This criteria can work to eliminate some news papers but can not work to assure that one is trustable since then a newspaper that informs normally but has a section called "Recent visits of extraterrestrial" would be a reliable source just because the rest of the pages are normal.--Igor21 18:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

* Has it won respected journalism awards?

Randroide 09:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC) I do not know.

* Can a Wikipedian's claim that the publication is biased be verified through reliable outside sources?

Randroide 09:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC) I do not make that claim.

Southofwatford 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC) I do make that claim - the claim is based on my own judgement of what El Mundo publishes, but could be backed up by other newspapers that cross the political spectrum in Spain

This is the root of the problem. A small group of people very well known in Spain is defending this theories against the mainstream of the country. We told Randroide this and then he came with the theory that the rest of newspapers are written by the same hand. So the answer is a big yes. Everybody in Spain knows for sure that the bombing was done by islamists and what Pedro J is playing but Randroide insists in not accepting this becasue he says that the rest of the media are in the conspiracy.--Igor21 18:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

* If the publication is verifiably biased, one solution is to identify it as such in the article and cite one or more alternate or contrasting sources for balance.

Randroide 10:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC) Some of the claims made by "El Mundo" can be sourced externally. See, for instance, 11_March_2004_Madrid_train_bombings#Questions_over_the_type_of_explosive_used_in_the_bombs

Southofwatford 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC) I am not sure what the external source is that Randroide refers to here. If it is the declaration of the police officer then the main thing that has to be said is that the statement made by the police officer simply does not justify the claim made by El Mundo. In fact, its a clear example of a sensationalist approach where they produce a headline that is not backed up by the evidence contained in the article.

Randroide 18:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC) El Mundo pointed to an inconsistency with the Nitroglycerine issue: What the TEDAX chief said is incompatible with Goma 2-ECO exploding in the trains. All the demonstration can be made with external sources.

---

Southofwatford 10:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC) They took a statement about the presence of nytrocglycerine, subsequently retracted, and put a headline stating definitively that it was a different explosive used on the trains. Classic sensationalist reporting, the facts of the story do not back up the headline. Anyway, there is no reason to source from this article because it adds nothing factual (excluding speculatiion and insinuation) to what is in the primary source.

---

* Overall, do the reliable sources for this subject divide along ideological or other identifiable lines?

Randroide 09:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC) Well, no. The main supporters of the Indictment fall both at the right (ABC) and at the left (El País), and the main doubters of the Indictment are mixed (El Mundo) and rightist (w:es:La Razón (España)). I am not going to accept "El Mundo" being caracterized as "conservative". Just two examples: This newspaper opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq (the main argument of the PSOE against Aznar conservative government in 2003) and supports gay marriage [15].

Southofwatford 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC) I completely disagree, you cannot determine a newspaper's political position based on what it has published in the past. The Sun in Britain was at one point regarded as a leftish newspaper - anyone would laugh at that description now. I have provided several concrete examples, without using photos of s, of El Mundo's current political orientation - I could provide more. The promotors of the conspiracy theories are almost entirely on the right of Spanish politcs and are closely allied to a faction of the Partido Popular. The director of El Mundo has also demonstrated very close links recently with this faction of the PP - again I have provided several examples of these connections. None of this changes just because they opposed the Iraq war.

Randroide 18:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC) Southofwatford wrote: you cannot determine a newspaper's political position based on what it has published in the past

The newspaper from yesterday is also "in the past". Are you suggesting that the political position of a newspaper should be redefined everyday with the new paper for that same day?. When do you place the starting point for "the past" that must not be taken into account?. Maybe just when "El Mundo" started to attack the 2004 PSOE government?. Is that the right moment for you?. Why do you support such criteria?.

All your description of a network among doubters of the indictmet is very interesting, and should be sourced and described in Controversies about the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings... but there is simiular network among the defenders of the Indictment, and that network should also be described.

---

Southofwatford 10:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC) I wasn't talking about yesterday's paper as you well know. I am talking about a significant shift over time in the political orientation of El Mundo, that started well before the 2004 elections. Where do I suggest that this is something that needs to be revised daily?

---

A couple of clarifications

• Newspaper of record Not absolutely necessary for encyclopedic merit. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are newspapers of record in New York City, but New York Newsday and New York Daily News are also mainstream newspapers that conduct respectable journalism. The New York Post is tabloid and sensationalistic, but still covers mainstream stories and sometimes does good investigative work. Generally the practice would be to cite a paper of record unless some other publication broke the story (or some significant aspect thereof).
• Bias Editorially, the Journal is pretty far to the right on the editorial page and neutral in its news reporting. There doesn't seem to be much dispute about that characterization. The Times aims at the center and often misses the mark to the left (how far to the left depends on who you ask), which brings us to the matter of perspective: people who are far-right tend to call the Times far-left; people who are in the center tend to call it centrist but a little bit left; people who are far-left call it not nearly progressive enough. What matters in that type of situation, I'd say, is not what a particular set of Wikipedians think but what other leading periodicals have written on the subject, such as The Washington Post or The Boston Globe or Time Magazine.

I hope these analogies help because they're the best I can do. Regards, Durova 17:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Randroide 20:59, 4 November 2006 (UTC) I also suggest to look a the "El Mundo" associated newspapers (look at the the bottom of the mainpage):

Socios en Europa: Corriere della Sera, Libération, The Guardian.

ALL of them are "left wing". I see no wrong in being right-wing, but I do not like misrepresentations.

---

Southofwatford 10:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC) Misrepresentation? You are seriously going to try and convince us that the El Mundo of Anson, Losantos, and Zaplana is left wing? What do you have to justify this apart from gay marriage, articles written years ago, and alliances that have existed probably for over a decade? The current political line of El Mundo on ETA, on autonomy statutes, and on March 11th mirrors almost exactly the political position of the hard right faction of the Partido Popular grouped around Aznar, Acebes, Aguirre and Zaplana. That the paper's positions have changed in the last few years is evident, there are plenty of websites quoting recently the completely diffferent positions on these issues that the paper held a few years ago. Add to that the mobilization at considerable expense of hundreds of PP members for a private affair of El Mundo's director, and the same director appearing at PP meetings and endorsing PP positions. All facts, Randroide, not misrepresentation. Unless you want to tell us that none of this has happened?

---