Spanish Retreat Vindicates Al Qaeda's Contempt For The West

"In his 1996 "Declaration of War Against the Americans," Bin Laden cited Washington's retreat in the face of the 1992 Aden hotel bombings and the Black Hawk Down fiasco in Somalia in 1993: "You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew. The extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear." Those signs of weakness only emboldened the terrorists to launch even greater attacks against the United States."

But, in the end, it was Spain who showed the soft backbone that Bin Laden believed was the definition of westerners.