This e-mail is from a reader:
"If I were I Spaniard, I would renounce my citizenship immediately, in
complete shame for the cowardice of my countrymen. Whatever one thought of
the original decision to go into Iraq, you can’t let tyrants decide the
outcome of your elections. The new government, at the very least, should
have immediately announced the doubling of its security forces in Iraq - on
the grounds that while we don’t like Bush, we won’t buckle to terrorists.
The Spaniards, like many in Europe, seem to assume that if they declare
public neutrality in the conflict between civilization and barbarism, they
can escape the conflict. All the while they live comfortably under the
umbrella of American security and prosperity, and assume that if things ever
turn really nasty, the Americans will surely bail them out. Tyrants,
meanwhile, are confirmed in the view that the civilized have no backbone.
This is yet another sad indication that Europe really is a dying continent.
It won’t fight because it has nothing worth fighting for."