UNLIKE the "peace-in-our-time" demonstration three weeks ago, last Satuday's was indeed an anti-ETA protest. One that didn't call for merely achieving peace -which is not saying much, since peace can be the end result of victory or defeat- but specifically for achieving peace by defeating terrorists.

As I said in that post, that was hardly clear in the rally by Zapatero allies three weeks ago. Zapatero always sports a calculated ambiguity, saying he wants peace, his favorite word. As you know, the other way to achieving peace is by negotiating, which is the equivalent to surrender when there's a democratic country at one side of the table and a group of thugs at the other. And especially when that group of thugs keeps hitting, as they just did again today. I also said I was afraid that Zapaterlain would see that demonstration by his allies as a vindication that even after the deadly Barajas bomb it was worth to keep negotiating. I disagreed with Robert Mayer on that respect, who was encouraged that it would mean an end once and for all of Zapatero's temptation to negotiate further.

If it only were so. Zapatero has unequivocally said that in spite of the "tragic accident" (sic) in Barajas, it's still his moral duty to "find peace." Of course, the Socialist party and its allies didn't attend last Saturday's anti-ETA demonstration, something that hasn't been highlighted by Reuters or the NYT as it was when the PP didn't attend January's protest. Most telling is the furious reaction of the Zapatero administration. The most absurd, the silliest complaint, is saying that the Popular Party was "demonstrating against Zapatero rather than against ETA." Well, look at this picture; and also think how absurd the accusation is, because of course there was shouting against Zapatero. They're the ones negotiating with a terrorist group, and that's what people disagrees with. Is that criticizing more the government and less ETA? Of course not: if you protest against your government's anti-terror policies you're not less against terrorists: you simply are also against the political decisions. I mean, the Socialists' complaints are as if a lab doing animal tests would say, when PETA activist protests are at its doors, "how sad, you're protesting more about us than about mistreatment of animals."

If the government of your country does something that you don't agree with and you demonstrate against it, you're protesting against both, not one above the other. Just as anti-Iraq war protesters: they thought Bush was wrong with his decision and protesting it, but that didn't mean that demonstrators were any less against war, did it?