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WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) - President Bush said Sunday that Democrat John Kerry is using "upside-down" logic when he says terrorists' recruiting efforts are getting a boost from the war on terrorism. "During the '90s, the terrorists were recruiting and training and plotting for war with us long before we went to war with them," said Bush, campaigning for re-election in West Virginia. Sen. Kerry of Massachusetts, Bush's Democratic rival, has said administration policies create anti-American sentiment around the world and encourage rather than discourage people to join terrorist cells. "I think it's wrong to provide excuses for their (terrorists') hatred,"...

Al Qaeda’s candidate, Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero won in Spain after they murdered 200 Spaniards. Their US candidate, Democrat John Forbes Kerry, may win here if there is another terrorist attack in the United States. You don’t believe Kerry is al Qaeda’s choice? America certainly does. In a national survey, Americans were asked, “Who do you believe the terrorists want to win in November?” 65% answered “Kerry”. Only 17% thought Bush would be their choice. In a recent column, Ann Coulter said, “Don't think of the Spanish election as a setback for freedom - think of it as a...

A Prime Minister is waging war. The great majority of the people oppose the war. The majority vote for the Prime Minister. Absurd? Well, that was the situation in Spain. It also applies, more or less, in Israel. But here the similarity ends. The Spanish people have thrown their Prime Minister out. The Israeli people go on supporting their Prime Minister. The Spaniards, in their innocence, believe that if a Prime Minister does the opposite of what the great majority of the people want, he has to go. They think that this is what democracy is all about. In Israel,...

I am not a Spaniard. Somewhere, on March 12, I saw the headline, “We are All Spaniards Now.” It was an allusion to the Le Monde headline from 9/12, “We are All Americans Now.” As we now know, that initial French (and German) sympathy for America was short-lived. In no time flat, the Old Europe of France and Germany sought to appease Islamism, and while claiming to be our allies, to betray us at every step of the way. Not so, the Spaniards. The 1,300 troops they sent to Iraq were largely a symbolic matter, but the symbolism was powerful....

MINNEAPOLIS -- In psychology, there is a term known as reinforcement learning. This method of learning revolves around habitually responding to an action or behavior with a reward. Once the subject has learned that a particular action is always met with a reward, they expect that performing said action will result in another reward. I've seen the results of Spain's elections. I saw how the polls flip-flopped overnight. I know what caused this. Am I a rocket scientist? No. The result of the Spanish election is a reward. It's a reward to whomever committed this horrid atrocity on March 11....

Spain’s ‘Munich’ Remembered James Humes Tuesday, Mar. 23, 2004 Evil had flaunted its ugly face. Words of hate and threats of destruction had spewed from it. So people in fear of the monster sought to mollify it. Europe and England were afraid that if they met it head on, they would be the next targets of terror and victims of violence. The time was 1938, and the monster was Adolph Hitler, who was threatening war, unless he was given a piece of Czechoslovakia. The peoples of Europe and their leaders had already witnessed the Nazi wickedness: the marching of storm...

<p>Noisy leftist parties and factions in Europe hate the American Republican Party and its leader George W. Bush. When John Kerry's supporters say, "anybody but Bush" -- not exactly a compliment to their candidate, by the way -- they cheer up leftist Europeans still grousing over their diminished fortunes.</p>

<p>MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Defiant despite a crushing election defeat, outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said Monday he does not regret supporting the war in Iraq and criticized his successor's plan to withdraw Spanish troops.</p> <p>Aznar's remarks were his first in public since the March 14 general election in which his conservative Popular Party crashed to surprise defeat amid charges that he had provoked the Madrid rail bombings three days earlier by backing the war. The attack killed 202 people and wounded more than 1,800.</p>

The Spanish election results are reverberating around the world, and the realization is setting in that the implications are disastrous -- not only for Spain, but for all of Europe, for the war on terror, and perhaps for the very survival of western civilization. Mass murderers have won an easy victory of staggering proportions. And any hope of coping with its effects will first require a realistic assessment of the damage that has already been done and where it is likely to lead -- all weighed in the context of the sobering lessons of history. Although the recent events in...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Terrorists Topple Their First European State VIEW FROM THE RIGHT Adam Sparks, Special to SF Gate Monday, March 22, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin Apparently, Spain has chosen appeasement. And, proving old Ben's wise dictum, Spaniards now deserve neither liberty or safety, and they'll most certainly get what they deserve. The upset election of the socialists in Spain speaks volumes about the Spanish people. They now gleefully join much of Old Europe, which had already capitulated to the Islamo-fascists who are...

Are the Spanish cowards? Or do they simply not grasp the nature of the war on terror? The answer to the first question is decidedly "No." Spain has endured 40 years of Basque terrorism, carried out by separatists who follow an ideology almost as weird as al Qaeda's — a mixture of radical leftism and nationalism — yet nobody has ever talked of capitulating to the terrorists and granting independence to that region. Meanwhile, the small and underfunded Spanish Army has been stretched to its limits by going to patrol Kabul. Last May, 62 soldiers were killed when the plane...

The Spanish electorate may have put my children's lives at risk — and I am furious about it. There are times when I am especially thankful that I'm an American — and, even more so, that my children are Americans. One of those times was in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. The outpouring of national pride, an immediate willingness to take the fight to the terrorists. A wholesome desire to see our government avenge our dead. A resolve to destroy the very roots of terrorism, no matter how long it took. Another one of those times was in the...

Five days after a series of bombs exploded on Madrid’s commuter trains killing over 200 people Spanish investigators and Western intelligence agencies are said to be almost certain that Islamic terrorists were to blame for the attacks—and not the Basque separatist group ETA, as the Spanish premier and his interior minister had initially declared. If the attack was indeed the work of al-Qaida or one of its many affiliates, it was singularly successful in achieving its presumed political objectives. Until the morning of March 11 the Popular Party (PP) government of the outgoing prime minister José Maria Aznar looked poised...

Six days after the Madrid bombings left 202 dead and more than 1,400 wounded, a terrorist group linked to al-Qaida declared that Spain will temporarily not be attacked again due to the recent change of government and the declaration of the new Socialist president to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. In other words, a pardon for good behavior. In the March 15 edition of a leading Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, columnist Gabriel Albiac wrote: "The elections were won by the undignified option of surrender. An enemy a thousand times more dangerous than the Nazis, because their leader is God and...

Among the big losers in Spain's election was Tony Blair, who lost his most important ally in Europe. With José María Aznar now headed to the world of think tanks and corporate boardrooms, Blair stands almost alone as a European leader willing to expend blood and treasure to establish Iraq as a democratic and peaceful model for a 21st-century Middle East. True, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi remains with Blair, but he lacks Aznar's gravitas and international standing. Blair also expects plucky little Poland — to borrow a title once conferred on Belgium — to stand firm (despite the recent wavering by...

AFTER A terrorist attack by al-Qaida that left hundreds of their fellow countrymen dead, Spanish voters immediately voted to give the terrorists what they want -- a Socialist government that opposes America's war on terrorism. Al-Qaida has changed a government. Until the bombings last week, the center-right Popular Party of outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar had been sailing to victory. But then the al-Qaida bombs went off and Spaniards turned out in droves to vote against the government that had been a staunch Bush ally in the war on terrorism. (I guess it's OK for a Spanish Socialist to...

Spain's change of government was reason for celebration in the madrassas of Pakistan and the shops of Gaza last Sunday. It was a brief respite in a series of setbacks the radical muslim movement has experienced over the last year. The first major western power appeared to have capitulated to the political pressure generated from a spectacular and deadly terrorist strike in Madrid. Spanish elections held on Sunday, less than a week after the bombings, had put the Socialist party in charge and significant policy changes were to follow. It was made clear before the election that a vote for...

<p>"Blow to Bush: Ally rejected/voters clearly reiterate opposition to Iraq  war."</p> <p>You could almost see terrorists around the world smiling.</p> <p>The story underneath concluded: "The Bush administration must now fight  the perception, accurate or not, that acts of terror against America 's  allies can sway nations into rethinking the wisdom of standing too  closely with Mr. Bush ." And too close to America .</p>

"I want a government that does not intervene in the economy." Don't we all? But these are not the words one expects to come out of the mouth of a self-proclaimed socialist – much less the standard-bearer of a socialist party who is about to take power at the head of a major West European nation. If socialism means anything at all, it is confidence in the government's ability to manage the economy. But with the communists in China clamoring to endorse private property to buck up their credibility with the capitalist class, and the socialists in Spain swearing to...

FANNING ISLAND, Republic of Kiribati -- Out here, in the Gilbert Island archipelago, nearly halfway ‘round the world from Spain, there is one topic that dominates nearly every conversation: the effect of the March 11 Madrid train bombings on the Spanish elections three days later. The rush-hour explosions that killed 201 and wounded more than 1,750 were not only a devastating tragedy for the people of Spain, but a profound example of what every terrorist organization seeks to achieve: political change through violence. For the people of the United States and the Bush administration, the Madrid attack -- and its...