Originally posted by Dr Unne
Spain was heavily on our side before their election, and not as much on our side after it; this is fact. Americans are going to be sad about that. Should we be happy that we just lost an ally? What's the appropriate way to respond? Should we rejoice in the streets? Pretend we don't care?
So, it's a case of "if you're not with us, you're against us" then? Just because they're no longer going to provide direct support does not mean that they're any less of an ally in principle. There's a difference between "being an ally" and "helping to fight someone's illegal wars". The whole western world supports America as a nation; but very few countries will be willing to throw their soldiers into what they feel is an unjust cause. [q=Dr Unne]No one said Spain had the attacks coming. I think it's a faulty analogy to compare the kind of trash people said about America to the things people say about Spain today.

No one is saying Spain "voted for al-Qaeda".[/q][q=Skogs]Witness David Brooks in Tuesday's New York Times, outraged that the Madrid bombings prompted Spanish voters to "throw out the old government and replace it with one whose policies are more to al-Qaeda's liking. What is the Spanish word for appeasement?" Right-wing blog artist Andrew Sullivan also raided the 1930s lexicon for the same, exhausted word: "It seems clear to me that the trend in Europe is now either appeasement of terror or active alliance with it. It is hard to view the results in Spain as anything but a choice between Bush and al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda won." Not to be outdone, former Bush speech-writer David Frum, the man who coined "axis of evil", sighed at the weakness of the Spanish: "People are not always strong. Sometimes they indulge false hopes that by lying low, truckling, appeasing, they can avoid danger and strife ... And this is what seems to have happened in Spain."[/q]Hmm. "No one" indeed.