A two-page article at Reuters entitled Millions Choke Spanish Streets in Bomb Protest explains just that: Many, many Spanish citizens are protesting yesterday's terrorist attacks that killed nearly 200 people.

Although this is powerful expression of anger and mourning, and no doubt a powerful way to reunite the nation, you have to wonder how much good it's going to do. What will these "protests" really accomplish? It isn't as if al-Qaeda or whoever perpetrated the crimes will sit down and say "Well, these attacks are really making people unhappy, maybe we should stop." They are doing these just precisely to frighten, anger, and sadden people, and the Spainish people's actions are showing the terrorists that their actions are having precisely the desired effects.

On a sidenote, many of the demonstrators blame the attacks on their right-wing government: "If they had not put us in the war, this would not have happened to us," said Nerea Hernandez, 17. As much as I dislike right-wing governments, I also dislike the idea that terrorists could influence ANY government's decisions. However, the reality is, the terrorists view this as fair game. "All's fair in love and war", right? Well, as Hernandez touched on, by starting a war with the Iraqis, for example, you have actually started a war with many, many more people. Hidden allies, in a way, the terrorist threat could potentially become a large force to be reckoned with politically.

View this article in its entirety, as well as all other articles by Andrew Quinn, at http://www.andrewquinn.org.