On March 11, 2004, four separate but coordinated attacks were carried out by an Al Queda-inspired cell in Spain, killing 191 people on commuter trains in Madrid and wounding another 1,755.

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What was Spain's reaction? A majority of the Spanish people blamed their right-wing government and voted for a left-wing government instead. The new government took home Spain's troops from Iraq. Otherwise, not much happened. There are no excessive security controls at Spanish airports. Tourists are welcome. People don't ask about your fingerprints or political affiliations or miniature Swiss Army knives.

Immigrants are welcome, too. Spain has been very generous when it comes to accepting refugees and illegal immigrants from Africa. And Spain has nothing that even remotely resembles Guantanamo, and also nothing that even remotely resembles the Patriot Act. Even so, Spain, like the United States, has not been the victim of more terrorist attacks.

When I grew up in the sixties, I knew where in the world you would find excessive security controls at the borders and secret prisons where nameless things might be going on. That was in the Communist countries. I didn't know why that was so, and the only answer I got when I asked was that the Communists were evil. And maybe they were, too, but when I look back, my chief impression is that they were scared. They felt inferior, and they feared being attacked or taken over by the West. (And the satellite states were not only scared of the West, of course, but they were every bit as scared of the Soviet Union.) So they clamped down so hard on their own countries and their own people to make sure that they were in control of things as much as possible. And they most certainly didn't give strangers the benefit of the doubt, either. They did not dare to trust.

I'm not saying that the United States is like the Communist countries in the sixties. Obviously the differences are enormous. But for all of that, I would never have guessed that I would see as many similarities between the European Communist countries of the sixties and the United States of the early twenty-first century as I see today. And the biggest similarity is the level of fear permeating these societies.

Sorry for going off topic and stealing your thread, Shayne.

Ann