Spaniards clutched flowers and fell silent Friday as they marked the seventh anniversary of an Islamic terror attack that left 191 people dead on the Madrid commuter rail system in Europe's worst Islamic terror attack.
Not remembered as much is that the Spanish people reacted to the attack by electing a government committed to withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq. And Spain did retreat from the fight.
As heart-breaking as the loss of life was at the time, as time passed the tragedy of losing their nerve in the war on terror was worse because it taught jihadis that they really could achieve great things by killing us in large enough numbers.
It would have been better to have taught them that nothing will stop us from finding and killing the jihadi murderers.
