I have to say the article above is somewhat confusing. The gist of the argument appears to be that the bombers will bomb whenever, wherever they get the chance. This is a given. The French and Germans anticipate bombs just as much as the UK does. I do not believe the Spanish voted for appeasement they simply had had enough of the PP. In the words of Basil Fawlty it is "stating the bleeding obvious". The article completely misses the significance of the Spanish election in an European context - perhaps this is not surprising. I don't think I really understand US politics in any meaningful way.

The Socialists turned around a 3 or 4% deficit and won by a similar amount. The turn out for the election was up by more than the margin of victory. A high turn out favours the Socialist as they have a larger if slightly apathetic bed rock of support. The behaviour of the PP in the couple of days prior to the election did not necessarily turn off many of their own supporters, but it did galvanise the opposition. (A turn out incidently that would put many recent elections elsewhere to shame).

There appears to be far too much being read into the result. I think the dismay in certain quarters is a bigger fillip to AQ than the loss of a few hundred peace keepers in the ME. Some commentaries seem to me to be laden with political pique rather than any sensible analysis of the result. The new Socialist Government anticipates having a central partnership with France and Germany and intends to co-ordinate with them on anti-terror tactics. There is more than one way to skin a cat. The result and the acceptance of the result by the PP shows why democracy works and why it is integral to our way of life. I despair of the "democracy is ok as long as you vote the way we want" argument. Indeed the very route AQ would take us if they were in power.

The US administration has adopted a particular approach to this struggle (I prefer the word struggle over war for some reason I think it is more indicitive of the long haul we face) and for whatever reason is clumsy and inarticulate in accommodating the opinions and approaches of others who are actually on their side in this matter. This is sadly unfortunate, but something we have to live with. Bickering amongst ourselves is, of course, not exactly going to upset Osama.