forties original post was:
the spainards already folded like cheap camera's.
this statement is wrong. 90% of spanish people were against the war on iraq in the first place! furthermore the current government had always stated it will withdrew the troops. therefore by all means one cannot say the spanish folded like whatever. they were against it from the beginning!
And again, you are making a leap of logic. Polls reflected a much closer race before than after the election--in fact the popular party reflected an advantage. That means that however many people opposed the occupation of Iraq, they did not feel so strongly about it as to make it a major voting issue. AFTER the bombing, they obviously felt differently.
I feel that they did cave. Rather than being incensed at the terror and more determined to fight it, they wanted to get out of it altogether. That is there right, but you don't deal with terrorists by giving in.
After having lived in Europe and dealing with a lot of nations and seeiing their culture, their behavior didn't surprise me. Collectively, they are a very emotional people (relative to Northern Europeans), and they respond to things more emotionally, and they tend to change their minds more quickly--their are a bit more mercurial than other European cultures. It's not to say it's right or wrong, but I fully expected them to change their votes to the Socialist party, or to vote when they would not have normally voted based on their highly emotional reactions. It sends a bad message to the terrorists, but that's their call.
The same applies to the US. We need to do what's right for us, as opposed to be so concerned about what others think. 9/11 happend to us, and it's our call as to how we fight terrorism.
