As far as I know, the Socialists still have to face a coalition government. Any chance the Populists can block this? What's sad is the fact that the best thing to happen from a realpolitik standpoint is for Spain to get hit again, to show the Spanish people that AQ doesn't care if you abandon Iraq or not--you're still infidels, and you're still dead. That's the most sickening thing I've ever had to consider, next to US aircraft having to shoot down American airliners to save other Americans. And that's why I personally despise AQ: because they get off on making us kill each other.

"What's sad is the fact that the best thing to happen from a realpolitik standpoint is for Spain to get hit again" Which is a good enough reason right there not to subscribe to realpolitik. The best thing that could happen is for the Spainairds to catch a few more terrorists for us and for no one else to die.

No your right sentinal, if Spain were to get hit again it would smarten them right up. Something tells me there safe for the next little while, AQ does award people in the very short term for appeasing them. However i think something even better will happen, that is France's arrangement with Muslim terrorists in its country will come to an end and France will suffer a mega attack. They will then come running to the US who will greet France with open arms. If AQ are stupid enough to attack any part of old Europe they will have helped unite the western powers like never before.

Ugh. YOu know some conspiracy-think wack job might just read this and use it to bolster their 'October Surprise' tripe. Romani, sorry man. Your country hosed you. AK may be a bit harsh, but he's kinda right. Politics starts in your own back yard. Guys like you didn't convince your neighbors. It sucks, and I hope it gets righted soon. But, in a war to the knife, a war to the hilt there is no second place. Celebrim's and AK's posts dovetail nicely. It's unfathonable to many of us that we'd ever lose a war of classicaly liberal values versus repressive theocratic one. The switching loyalty of Spain is a big slap in the face with the reality that it isn't a done deal and we could still lose. Some react to it with reasoned fear(celebrim) and others with anger and vehnement words/deeds(AK).

>>The switching loyalty of Spain is a big slap in the face with the reality that it isn't a done deal and we could still lose.<< Abso-freakin-lutely. Some react to it with reasoned fear(celebrim) and others with anger and vehnement words/deeds(AK).<< Well, nobody's saying that Spain or any other current ally in this epic clash of ideologies and civilizations have no sovereign right to disagree on the proper response to the use of their own public conveyances as weapons and targets by terrorists as a means to kill people indiscriminately. But at what point do we demand consensus to the perennial idiot leftist question "Why are they killing us?" with the obvious answer "BECAUSE WE LET THEM DO SO."

Saying stuff like "Guys like you didn't convince your neighbors" is real easy. What people have to realize is that there is a concerted anti Bush/ anti America effort going on by all the media over here (and no Fox to balance the view). ALL mainstream news here is with a leftist bias. Now for me convincing ONE person takes a lot of time, because someone isn't easily going to change his opinion based upon the "accurate and professional analysis" of the news service just because some guy tells him otherwise. Oh and lets not forget that the media puts out BS much faster than I can refute it. Maybe it's because just talk too much to leftists instead of punching, but this happens frequently when I talk politics: I'm being called a nazi, which basically means you've presented a point to a leftist for which he has no answer. Really the standard of political discussion today. I don't even get upset about that one any more. I get so overwhealmed by the utter stupidity of a viewpoint/conspiracy that: - I end up in a state of total disbelief for several minutes (surely no-one can be THAT stupid?). - Then I go into a state of wonder for several minutes (where on earth could such a crazy theory come from?). - Then I go several minutes into a state of denial (surely something so evidently stupid doesn't need to be refuted?). - Then I go for several minutes into a state of refusal (I'm not going to discuss something that stupid). Needless to say when I get around to adress the statement the person I was talking to is gone. Because of this I can't guarantee with 100% that the Netherlands wouldn't react the same as Spain in similar circumstances.

Another comment about media coverage: US media were wise enough to not show the actual carnage of 9/11 neither 3/11. Spanish media weren't, since last Thursday you don't need to go the cinema to see a gore movie in Spain, you just need to switch on the TV or read a newspaper and you'll find there all the different kind of mutilation possible in a human being, full color.

911 didn't feature a lot of mutilation. Some burns. Some people crushed. A whole lot incinerated. Not a lot left to bury. Take a look, one day, at some of the fire trucks pulled from the rubble. Ask yourself, if that's what happened to a steel truck, what happened to the people? Beneath the WTC, workers excavated puddles of resolidified molten metal that had once been building structure. The dust that drifted down all over the place- that was the people.

"911 didn't feature a lot of mutilation." There speaks someone who wasn't there. Sometimes I wonder whether it was a completely good thing how the media carefully excised the hard to watch parts of 9-11. I respect that, but sometimes I think Americans need a good dose of reality lest they forget exactly what happened. I've seen the real pictures - the ones that they can't show on TV. I've talked to people who were there. You can't imagine the mutilation unless maybe your a soldier and you've seen the face of war. Headless torsos sitting in chairs. Bodies splattered like watermelons. People burning alive. Pregnent women leaping from upper floors. Limbs and bodies and viscera scattered across the courtyard. The thump of bodies hitting the ground. Don't talk to me about how clean the deaths were on 9-11. Don't talk to me about the lack of horror. Track down someone was there, buy them a drink, and maybe they'll tell you the story. But don't count on it. Somethings understandably don't bear remembering. But we best remember them. Don't make me turn this into a 9-11 rememberance thread. Never forget.

We (the American "we") were all there on 9-11. Don't misconstrue Sarge's words as saying otherwise. I think this all boils down to one of the basic premises of non-thinking people - that if it didn't happen on television, it didn't happen. Unfortunately, these people tend to view the media as a sensory organ extension of their own brains. At that point, images don't become "shocking" unless the media tells them they are. MTV, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake said their halftime show at the Super Bowl would be "shocking." But instead of setting off a nuclear device in a stadium full of people, they merely exposed Ms. Jackson's nipple piercing. Ho-hum. Think back to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. People left the theater swearing they saw gore and blood and viscera and dismembered bodies in that film. But in reality, they didn't. That movie is rather tame in that department. But people still managed to leave the theatre believing they saw something they didn't, because they were told they would see it. But, who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?