Obvious: This, to me, is a no-brainer. Rather than inspiring them to back down, the Spain bombings should have helped the world understand that this isn't just between the US and al-Quaida. This is between everybody who wants to respect neighbors and fences, and everyone who wants to kill innocents in order to have their way.

By rewarding the terrorists for killing more civilians, these nations are encouraging the terrorists to kill even more.

Whereas if more nations finally realized that this isn't just an anti-US campaign, that al-Quaida's quite comfortable with killing anybody to make its point, and more nations joined the coalition as a result of it, lives would be saved as the terrorists knew that was an ineffective tactic.

But, the world is spineless. And that's a great environment for terrorists.

I don't know why I'm even posting this. I guess it's like Douglas Adams said--Humans continual need to repeat the obvious comes from the fear that if their mouths stop moving then their brains would start working.