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Administration officials said this weekend that they were offering Spain all the help they could to determine who was behind the bombings, and whether Al Qaeda's claim of responsibility was credible. But now, Mr. Bush faces the task of persuading a new Spanish leadership -- the same politicians who argued that Mr. Aznar was far too close to Mr. Bush and his policy of pre-emption -- that the only way to confront terrorism is to strike back.
Oy. Where to begin. First of all, the policy of pre-emption isn't that you confront terrorism by striking back. It's that, you know, you attack pre-emptively. Look it up.
Secondly, is there any evidence that PSOE isn't, you know, willing to strike back at actual terrorists, or even be willing to attack possible terrorist threats pre-emptively, as opposed to attacking non-threats? If the NYT sat down and had a chat with some ETA members I'm sure they wouldn't hear too many kind words about PSOE. Again, look it up.
Like many countries, including Germany and France, Spain was on board when we went to Afghanistan. It's hard to imagine - and there's no evidence to the contrary - that PSOE wouldn't have been on board too. While Spain gets a lot of press for its involvement in Iraq, its saddest contribution to Bush's "war on terror" were the 62 Spanish soldiers who died in a plane crash returning from bomb disposal and construction duty in Afghanistan.