Spanish views from a small town

Spain was sitting pretty for too long. Every time people were mown down in other European capitals, we were reassured the police here were very busy dissipating terror cells. Every time an arrest was made, the public was made very aware of it, and told a future attack upon innocents in a Spanish city was almost non-existent. The central government had been crowing how much tourism in Spain had grown because Spain was seen as a safe destination. Barcelona had become the third most visited city in Europe after London and Paris this year. Cambrils is also a tourist destination, albeit more of a national one. Am I being harsh? No, because the authorities were guilty of the sin of pride. They prided themselves on being able to dismantle small terror cells, and on sniffing out potential murderers. While they may have helped to avoid other probable attacks, they should not have blinded themselves nor the general public to the real possibility of something like this happening. At the same ti...