Spain's Aznar answers his critics:

Its lessons are simple. If we want to stop terrorists from murdering us and from dictating how we lead our lives, we must confront them. Some think the solution is to sue for peace, to negotiate with terrorists so that they might go and kill elsewhere. But that way is unacceptable to me and to millions of Spaniards. Terrorism deserves only to be defeated. This is the debt we owe to the victims of the attacks, and to the society that mourns them.

...Once deception had successfully supplanted truth, our opponents sought to redirect the public's anger against the terrorists, exhorting people to channel their ire toward a government that was hard at work, a government that is still working to clarify what happened and to bring the guilty to justice. Last weekend was a time for solemnity, and for reflection. Instead, people with partisan motives scarred the moment with their screeching accusations.

I can't imagine such a solemn event being made political:

The government's former top counterterrorism adviser testified Wednesday that the Clinton administration had "no higher priority" than combatting terrorists while the Bush administration made it "an important issue but not an urgent issue."

Richard Clarke told a bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that "although I continued to say it (terrorism) was an urgent problem I don't think it was ever treated that way" by the current administration in advance of the strikes two and a half years ago.