So it is quite possible that the election was determinded by Socialists who would not otherwise have placed a vote. So I ask you: Is it a victory for the terrorists to get more voters into the booths?

Yes.

But they won't be withdrawn until the handover in June and maybe not even then. So what's the problem - we should hope that Iraq can stand on its own feet by then.

No it can't. But that's not the point. The point is that Spanish voters have given in to terrorist demands.

Could you point out some other examples of how the new government is engaging in appeasement?

Isn't this enough? Come to think of it, I think the new socialist government should retract its campaign promise to withdraw the troops, on the argument that things have changed because of the bombing, and so they are no longer bound by that promise, and they refuse to be part of a terrorist plot to control Spanish policy. In other words, the honorable thing for the socialists to do is to keep the policy in place that would have occurred had the bombing not taken place, even if they don't in fact agree with that policy.

I think there is a danger in writing off the election result as a victory for the terrorists. For that truly is to encourage them.

The damage has already been done. Denying what happened won't change that. The terrorists know they were succesful, even if we were to deny it. We must explain to the voters who changed their mind in the election (either by voting for someone else or by voting while they had planned not to vote) how bad that is, in order to help prevent such things from happening again.

Henry Sturman