Prince Harry will not serve in Iraq.

[jBirch]

Try to look at it strategically.

Al Zawahiri and others have demonstrated an understanding of the American tendency to short-sightedness and quick loss of enthusiasm for operations which don't conclude quickly---our intolerance for pain, in other words. They have pointed to the Vietnam experience as an exemplar. They know that delay is the deadliest form of denial. They know that as long as they don't lose in Iraq, they will win, because eventually public opinion will turn against a protracted, difficult struggle with no immediate victory in sight. They know that some of our opinion leaders will rail against the policy itself on moral and ethical grounds, that others will inveigh against it on practical and fiscal grounds; that families who lose sons and daughters in combat will become embittered; that the media will play up the failures and pass over the successes; etc. Public opinion will be turned against the unpleasant affair. And this in the final analysis will force political leadership to capitulate sooner or later.

And what then? What is the ultimate goal of AQ?

As their top strategist, you know all this. You have seen it play out before. You see it playing out again. Why would you expend resources on an act which is not only unnecessary but possibly counterproductive? Why would you put a done deal at risk? Why take the chance of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

We define this argument as "Ironic". See Alanis.

James.

[Inquartata]

Clearly you are privy to more intelligence than George Tenet, who in his book expresses total surprise that the US has not been hit again. Obviously he, unlike you, is not privy to the AQ masterplan.

You must have missed this part:

"My guess?"

Also, I have no great faith in the pronouncement of George Tenet---and am surprised that you do, given his "slam dunk" history. Or is he suddenly a genius now that he is writing things with which you agree?

Even if that were so, and I don't believe that this can fully explain the total lack of attacks on US soil- what bearing does this have on a debate on justifying the Iraqi invasion as enhancing US national security?

Not quite sure what you want. I was answering a question Philistine asked me. Possibly you should address any doubts about relevance to him?

All I've heard so far is arguments as to why leaving Iraq would make the US more vulnerable. Would you care to offer any good reasons, with this in mind, why you still think invading in the first place was a sensible strategy.

The same ones that pertained 4 years ago, which were advanced by the Administration and others.

So you have no idea about AQ strategy 1993-2001, but your mastery of the 'circumstances' 2001-2006 means you can invite us to....

Yep.

And I'll ask you again: Do you believe that as they acted 5 years ago they must necessarily act today? Must they act 10 years from now as they did 10 years ago?

Do you not think motivations and strategic objectives can change, or what?

If they can, then how they behaved and why has a relevance correlation to their behavior today of about nil, no?

Vietnam doesn't really show an intolerance of pain- you endured it for 15+ years.

Eh---what?

We didn't really gear up until 1965, and the Paris Accords were signed in 1973. Public opinion didn't really turn convincingly against the war until 1966 or 1967. That's 10 years if we're being generous, and the last 6 were in the teeth of pervasive antiwar sentiment and organized protests. In other words, support lasted just about as long as it did for Iraq, or maybe a bit longer.

America has a long history of enduring large casualties

Who said anything about numbers? I said "quick", didn't I?

Civil War

Well before the modern media age.

WW2,

3 years, for us. Yeah, such a marathon. No time for the media to wear us out with constant coverage of "disasters" and an overwhelming weight of op-ed doomsaying and moral opposition.

Korea

3 years again. Ditto.

Vietnam

See above.

They also know that recruitment is up after the invasion of Iraq- why get rid of your best recruiting sergeant?

I don't really buy this one, but---as you wish.

I'd say they would be just as inclined to keep the US bogged down in Iraq and try and attack the US at the same time.

And so I ask again: What's your explanation for the absence of fresh attacks in the US? Beneficence? The crack performance of the Department of Homeland Security?

But the insight you assume they have isn't just unique to America. Would public opinion in any other country endure a protracted, difficult strategy with no immediate victory in sight?

You have a point there. It's gone much the same for other countries in the modern era, from French Algeria to Soviet Afghanistan.

However, it doesn't change my analysis to add that the US experience isn't unique. We still lose our national resolve quickly when victory isn't swift, AQ still knows it and still has only to wait for us to defeat ourselves. Another attack here would still threaten that process by risking renewed US public umbrage.

Or perhaps even the strategic or military grounds being offered- notably by those 'cowardly lefty' military leaders such as General Wesley Clark; Major General Paul Eaton and Major General John Batiste.

OK.

The idea that only Americans can defeat America is just absurd

There you go again, refuting arguments I haven't made...

All your offering as a strategy is- 'keep dieing boys, cos if you don't, your kids will'

Heh. Since I haven't offered any strategy at all, I rather think you're projecting there...

But your not their top strategist, so you dont.

"My guess" again. Remember?

You mean an act such as an attempt to kill Dick Cheney on a visit to Afghanistan a few weeks ago? Oh wait a minute....

I must have missed the annexation of Afghanistan to the United States...

Dude, you're really spinning farther and farther out there. Bring it back in!

I don't think you will find many who disagree that leaving Iraq as a stable democratic state would be best for America, Iraq and the region. It's how this will happen that we are arguing about. You have to demonstrate that this is achievable- simple as.

I'm not sure it is, without the national will to do things we are not prepared to do and have never been prepared to do, because we are too anxious to have the rest of the world like us and think we are "civilized".

Public Opinion is reacting to events in Iraq, not vice versa.

I think they are feeding on each other, myself.

Public Opinion and the 'Vietnam syndrome' is not proportional to casualty figures alone. American history shows that Americans will accept casualties, it's when they lose sight of a point when they wont have to do this public opinion reaches critical mass.

Still arguing points you wish I had made rather than the ones I did, I see.

Sigh.

Carry on.

[Inquartata]

By the same logic, I present to you this rock, which keeps tigers away.

Thanks!

[Inquartata]

And what then? What is the ultimate goal of AQ?

They have made pronouncements enough. Go and read some of them.

We define this argument as "Ironic". See Alanis.

James.

Would that be the royal or editorial "we"?

[jBirch]

They have made pronouncements enough. Go and read some of them.

Now that's just lazy. What is your interpretation of their goals given your reading of the pronouncements that AQ has publically made?

Would that be the royal or editorial "we"?

Well, as the Royal Editor, it's both.

James.

[Inquartata]

Now that's just lazy. What is your interpretation of their goals given your reading of the pronouncements that AQ has publically made?

I am a strict constructionist, remember.

No "interpretation" is needed. Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri have been exceedingly clear about their objectives. I see no reason not to take them at their words.

[jBirch]

I am a strict constructionist, remember.

No "interpretation" is needed. Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri have been exceedingly clear about their objectives. I see no reason not to take them at their words.

Oh ho!

And what are the words you're thinking of?

James.

[scrapinpeg]

Oh ho!

And what are the words you're thinking of?

James.

I won't speak for Inq, but quite a few of their fatwas and speeches come to mind. They're pretty clear about their intent to kill American and Israeli civilians, destroy their economies and societies, and install Islamic governments in all democracies that offend Allah by writing their own laws instead of obeying the Koran.

Feel free to read their 1998 fatwa, and any of the transcriptions of their speeches, and the "letter to Americans." They're fairly straightforward, once you get past the Middle Eastern habit of speaking in hypothetical questions.

[Inquartata]

What he said.

[pigeonmeister]

You must have missed this part: "My guess?"

Fine then...I assume that you will therefore adjust this very certainly stated sentence: "Will you also accept responsibility for abetting the next terrorist attack here in the US?"

to..

"I'm not really sure, but it's my best gues that this action could result in another attack on the US"

Also, I have no great faith in the pronouncement of George Tenet---and am surprised that you do, given his "slam dunk" history. Or is he suddenly a genius now that he is writing things with which you agree?

I don't have enormous faith in him, but even the meagre faith I have in him eclipes my faith in your ability to characterise the threat America faces. If the DCI is totally surprised at the lack of attacks and totally unaware of your theory, combined with the fact that your theory has not been advanced by anybody other than yourself, I think this is telling..

You say that on the one hand AQ has been disrupted so as being unable to attack AQ- now you say it is deliberate. When do you gues that this transition occured? Presumably sometime after January 2006- when OBL last said al-Qaeda was preparing new attacks on the US.

In fact Bin Laden responds specifically to your point.

"Reality testifies that the war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq, as he claims.

In fact, Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified resources.

As for the delay in carrying out similar operations in America, this was not due to failure to breach your security measures.

Operations are under preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once they are finished, God willing."

The same ones that pertained 4 years ago, which were advanced by the Administration and others.

You mean the ones made by the DCIA who, a couple sentences above, you ridiculed yourself?

And I'll ask you again: Do you believe that as they acted 5 years ago they must necessarily act today? Must they act 10 years from now as they did 10 years ago? Do you not think motivations and strategic objectives can change, or what?

No I don't doubt their ability to change, I doubt your ability to judge how, why and when the change occured. Your judgement is based on your own biased perceptions of what does and doesn't come across as provocative or weak. Your argument seems, to me, to be linked to an idea that the invasion of Iraq has, for whatever reason, disinclined them to attack America- because this would stiffen the resolve to stay in Iraq (even though this did not happen after 7/7 in the UK)

I am saying that AQ seems very happy with the status quo in Iraq. It means, for one, that there is less pressure on it as it tries to restablish a presence in Afghanistan (the disruption of which you single out as a key reason for keeping America safe). The way I see it, if America gets out of Iraq this frees up a lot of resources for fighting AQ in Afghanistan- why would AQ want this?

Plus you havn't been able to explain the degree to which OBL is in a position to place a 'stop' on terror attacks on America- given both the independent nature of the organisation he created, the feverish desire of his followers to kill Americans, and his obvious physical isolation.

If they can, then how they behaved and why has a relevance correlation to their behavior today of about nil, no?

How an organisation was created, organised and how it acted has enormous relevance to how it acts now. Could you understand the split in the IRA/Real IRA without understanding the tensions between Belfast and South Armagh IRA in the 1980-90's? Could you understand US intervention in Vietnam without studying Korea or the Chinese revolution? How can you characterise a change if you don't understand what it changed from?

Eh---what?

We didn't really gear up until 1965, and the Paris Accords were signed in 1973. Public opinion didn't really turn convincingly against the war until 1966 or 1967. That's 10 years if we're being generous, and the last 6 were in the teeth of pervasive antiwar sentiment and organized protests. In other words, support lasted just about as long as it did for Iraq, or maybe a bit longer.

At no point did a majority of Americans call for a withdrawal from Vietnam, even as late as 1969- only 19% wanted an immediate end to the war and that was after over 30,000 dead. This doesn't suggest to me that the US public were weak. Vietnam remains America's longest military conflict. The decision to start a withdrawal was made in 1969- the last soldier left in 1975. That doesn't suggest a lack of patience either.

America was forced out, not by protests, but by the fact that victory was defined as establishing a South Vietnamese govt able to support itself. The govt it supported had no popular legitimacy. More money, more troops and more bombs cannot make it easier for a population to support a corrupt, unrepresentative and despotic govt- I assume if was up to you, the US would be still trying?

Who said anything about numbers? I said "quick", didn't I?

The anti-Iraq war is nothing like as pervassive or as vocal as how you characterise the Vietnam peace campaign. There are no mass marches, no real counter-culture. College kids don't really give a crap, mothers don't fear the draft for their sons. Even when this was so, according to you, this lasted a good 6 years of the war. Public opinion didn't turn agaisnt Iraq until 2005/6-meaning we have had under 2 years. Even by the weak standards of Vietnam that means you probably have at least another 4 years to keep telling us the war is winnable and we are fighting them abroad instead of at home.

3 years, for us. Yeah, such a marathon. No time for the media to wear us out with constant coverage of "disasters" and an overwhelming weight of op-ed doomsaying and moral opposition.3 years again. Ditto.

Just enough time to realise you would have to keep 10,000's troops in Korea for the next 50 years.

The point I am making is that in these two conflicts, the US accepted huge and very sudden casualties- the explanation must go beyond the absence of a liberal media campaign. It must say something about the US public knowing what they were fighting for and against. Not knowing this, to me, is the key reason for the erosion of public support in Iraq.

I don't really buy this one, but---as you wish

So recruitment as either gone down or would have gone up anyway?

And so I ask again: What's your explanation for the absence of fresh attacks in the US? Beneficence? The crack performance of the Department of Homeland Security?

No doubt it is harder to mount a terrorist attack on US soil- but, in truth, I think that 9/11 was just a one off plot that got lucky when others before and after were either foiled or unfeasible. I think that Afghanistan could have disrupted the AQ leadership but there is absolutely no evidence linking Iraq (in terms of being a deterence or your own theory of 'holding fire') to the lack of attacks. Even if a theory I advance is absent or idiotic- it is irrelevant to proving yours.

However, it doesn't change my analysis to add that the US experience isn't unique. We still lose our national resolve quickly when victory isn't swift,

There cannot be a swift victory against the forces targetting the West- everyone knows that. You see the Iraq as evidence as that we are losing resolve to fight this threat. I, and a great many others, see invading Iraq as unconnected to nullifying this threat, indeed we see that prolonging it serves only to stengthen the resolve of our enemies. I think it is this feeling of the war being counter-productive that you find hardest to accept, it is much easier for you to write us off as lefty's (despite the fact that Britain, universally opposed to the war, has voted a centre or centre right party for 20 years)

AQ still knows it and still has only to wait for us to defeat ourselves.

bollox

Another attack here would still threaten that process by risking renewed US public umbrage.

Why didn't this happen after 7/7

I must have missed the annexation of Afghanistan to the United States...Dude, you're really spinning farther and farther out there. Bring it back in!

Yea- silly me, thinking that the assasination of the Vice-President would not be taken as the kind of provocation (umbrage I think was the word you used)
that you claim AQ are trying to strategically avoid.

because we are too anxious to have the rest of the world like us and think we are "civilized".

I wouldn't worry- they always have people like you to prevent this

[PeterGustafsson]

I won't speak for Inq, but quite a few of their fatwas and speeches come to mind. They're pretty clear about their intent to kill American and Israeli civilians, destroy their economies and societies, and install Islamic governments in all democracies that offend Allah by writing their own laws instead of obeying the Koran.

Feel free to read their 1998 fatwa, and any of the transcriptions of their speeches, and the "letter to Americans." They're fairly straightforward, once you get past the Middle Eastern habit of speaking in hypothetical questions.

While I do not doubt their wish to do the former of the objectives listed above, I could not with a cursory search find a statement affimative to the text that I have put in bold.

Did you refer to this?:
From Wikipedia:
On February 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, along with three other Islamist leaders, co-signed and issued a fatwa (binding religious edict) under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders (al-Jabhah al-Islamiyya al-'Alamiyya li-Qital al-Yahud wal-Salibiyyin) declaring:

[t]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies- civilians and military— is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Makka) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah'

Anyway, I do not see in this an order to "install Islamic governments in all democracies that offend Allah by writing their own laws instead of obeying the Koran" unless those countries have put their militaries in muslim countries, and/or supported Israel. Since most non-muslim democracies have done neither, I do not see your claim substantiated.

Care to provide a link about this purported objective of theirs?'

For the record: The above is not to be construed that I agree with their objectives.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[scrapinpeg]

Care to provide a link about this purported objective of theirs?'

Refer to the above-referenced "Letter to America" of 2002 and any number of al-Qaeda pamphlets and screeds essentially saying "convert to the true faith and live under Sharia or die." Theirs is an apocalyptic zealotry, and they're not shy about proclaiming it.

[Philistine]

Refer to the above-referenced "Letter to America" of 2002 and any number of al-Qaeda pamphlets and screeds essentially saying "convert to the true faith and live under Sharia or die." Theirs is an apocalyptic zealotry, and they're not shy about proclaiming it.

Here is a link to the "Letter to America."

One paragraph does "call America" to Islam.

I don't see in it a generalized argument that all who don't convert to Islam will be attacked by Al Queda--it seems much more concerned with perceived attakcs on and slights to Muslims by the US.

Do you have any actual links to any of the number of documents which explictily call for it?

Believing that Al Queda has, as a realistic goal, much less a perceptible chance, of forcing Islam on the US and the rest of the World seems a bit naive to me.

--Philistine

[Inquartata]

I don't see in it a generalized argument that all who don't convert to Islam will be attacked by Al Queda--it seems much more concerned with perceived attakcs on and slights to Muslims by the US.

Do you have any actual links to any of the number of documents which explictily call for it?

Believing that Al Queda has, as a realistic goal, much less a perceptible chance, of forcing Islam on the US and the rest of the World seems a bit naive to me.

--Philistine

The top AQ leadership has issued so many comminiques, videos and interviews that it is easy to miss the one you're looking for. In this report

http://images.usnews.com/usnews/news...lqaeda_crs.pdf

there is a reference to “Compilation of Usama Bin Ladin Statements 1994 - January 2004,” FBIS Report - GMP20040209000243, Feb. 9, 2004.

I have been unable to locate an on-line version of this, alas.

For a referenced explication of the "Caliphate" goal not being limited to currently Islamic countries alone, see the ( conservative ) article:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=16356

A further difficulty is the tendency of Middle Eastern mystics such as Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri to couch everything in flowery metaphors and recondite allusions. But if you think about it, those at the top of AQ, like Bin Laden, talk about how the ummah must be united under pious Muslim leaders and subject to sharia law; and since Muslims are everywhere, in every country, then the ummah encompasses every part of the world; hence every part of the world must be ruled by pious Muslim leaders and subjected to sharia. The only alternative is for Muslims to abandon their communities elsewhere and move back to those countries traditionally thought of as the Muslim countries, eg the Middle East and environs. And nowhere do the AQ leaders seem to talk about this...

[jeff]

(snip)... since Muslims are everywhere, in every country, then the ummah encompasses every part of the world; hence every part of the world must be ruled by pious Muslim leaders and subjected to sharia. The only alternative is for Muslims to abandon their communities elsewhere and move back to those countries traditionally thought of as the Muslim countries, eg the Middle East and environs. And nowhere do the AQ leaders seem to talk about this...

I don't think that the alternative is permitted by Islamic law either. Unless I misunderstand what I've read, once a geographic area is part of the Muslim world, it can never be retracted or given back. Hence some of the conflicts (today) in the Middle East, and previously most of southern Europe, including much of Spain and Italy. The issue has also come up in contemporary times relative to London. In any case, Islamists have made no secret of their desire and religious injunction to expand the umma to the entire world. Again in London: one cleric explicitly stated his goal to have the green flag of Islam flying over 10 Downing St.

None of this should be surprising. In intention if not in form this is no different from evangelicals in other religions, in particular Christianity, where the frequently expressed intention is to convert everyone everywhere (and along the way, to convince governments to make everyone live by your own standards.). So, there's no need to single out Islam for the goal of converting everyone. If they only went around with pamphlets, or had tables in the subway like the Nation of Islam in NYC, there would be no reason to specially mark their efforts. But that's not how this effort works.

[Inquartata]

Fine then...I assume that you will therefore adjust this very certainly stated sentence: "Will you also accept responsibility for abetting the next terrorist attack here in the US?"

to..

"I'm not really sure, but it's my best gues that this action could result in another attack on the US"

Certainly not! I will water down my rhetoric when others do so first!

I don't have enormous faith in him, but even the meagre faith I have in him eclipes my faith in your ability to characterise the threat America faces.

And in which of his versions of events do you place this meagre faith?

If the DCI

Former DCI...under that obvious scoundrel, Bush, be it remembered. In his current publicly opining incarnation he is only a private citizen, a memoir promoter and public speaker.

totally unaware of your theory,

How do you know?

combined with the fact that your theory has not been advanced by anybody other than yourself, I think this is telling..

Sort of the obverse of the argumentum ad numeram, eh? It's not credible because not enough people have thought of it?

Tsk. An argument is not more likely to be correct because many people believe it is correct. Neither is it more likely to be incorrect because few ( or even only one ) person believes it.

( Aside from that, it's not unique to me. A cursory search turned up "...bin Laden may have decided that a near-term attack would reunite Americans at a time when our own folly is already sufficient to make the U.S. the second superpower to be defeated by Allah’s mujahedin", in an article here: http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_05_21/article1.html )

You've just got to know the right search terms.

You say that on the one hand AQ has been disrupted so as being unable to attack - now you say it is deliberate.

I speculated that it WAS because they were scattered and wounded; but that it may well be strategy now.

When do you gues that this transition occured? Presumably sometime after January 2006- when OBL last said al-Qaeda was preparing new attacks on the US.

No idea, but not necessarily that late. Threats are not actions. At any rate, at some point after it began to look like the US was wearying of the Iraq effort and the awaited agitating to withdraw began to pick up steam. Perhaps at the point when public opinion polls showed a majority of people in the US were "against the war". Perhaps when Murtha and Co. began calling for immediate pullbacks. Perhaps when the party of "exit strategy" and "failed policy" was elected to control of Congress.

Does it matter?

"Reality testifies that the war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq, as he claims.

Of course it hasn't. It has gone on in Spain, Britain, Indonesia...

In fact, Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified resources.

Yes. And so?

As for the delay in carrying out similar operations in America, this was not due to failure to breach your security measures.

As I have said ( though I am loathe to credit his bombast on this or any other matter ).

Operations are under preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once they are finished, God willing."

Yeah...once we've withdrawn ignominiously from Iraq.

You mean the ones made by the DCIA who, a couple sentences above, you ridiculed yourself?

Among many others---back when he was still in the intelligence loop? Yes.

No I don't doubt their ability to change, I doubt your ability to judge how, why and when the change occured. Your judgement is based on your own biased perceptions of what does and doesn't come across as provocative or weak.

As with us all, young fellow. As with us all.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong, does it?

Your argument seems, to me, to be linked to an idea that the invasion of Iraq has, for whatever reason, disinclined them to attack America-

No, not the invasion: the point at which it became clear to them that we were not going to endure, that we were eventually going to pull out and give them the opportunity to crow about driving us out.

because this would stiffen the resolve to stay in Iraq (even though this did not happen after 7/7 in the UK )

Different strategies for different opponents. As a fencer you know this...

I am saying that AQ seems very happy with the status quo in Iraq. It means, for one, that there is less pressure on it as it tries to restablish a presence in Afghanistan (the disruption of which you single out as a key reason for keeping America safe). The way I see it, if America gets out of Iraq this frees up a lot of resources for fighting AQ in Afghanistan- why would AQ want this?

A good alternative theory.

Plus you havn't been able to explain the degree to which OBL is in a position to place a 'stop' on terror attacks on America- given both the independent nature of the organisation he created, the feverish desire of his followers to kill Americans, and his obvious physical isolation.

First, the matter of the "independent nature of the organisation he created" is a matter of estimation, not of established fact. We do not know what degree of control he and his top aides exercise over subsidiaries.

How an organisation was created, organised and how it acted has enormous relevance to how it acts now.

You may recall that I said nothing about relevance. I said "correlation". And you have just acknowledged that they are capable of changing their strategy, tactics and objectives. So I am not quite sure what you are trying to say there, or what you think it refutes...


Well, folks, that's my time for tonight! You've been a great audience! Try the veal!

Seriously, I hope to be able to get to the rest after the weekend.

[pigeonmeister]

Well, folks, that's my time for tonight! You've been a great audience! Try the veal!

Ha Ha! Whatever are political differences, I do like your style Inq!

[VELISARIOS]

..............................No!

[jBirch]

Ain't it interesting how different facts can be interpreted?

*grin*

I would like to throw this into the loop:

AQ hasn't orchastrated another 9/11 because it can't. This inability is not a direct result of any intentional US effort, but rather a by-product of the nature of the AQ organisation. Since the organisation itself is not coherent, it's operations can't be coherent either. AQ is described more as a "brand" of terrorism then as a rigidly commanded organisation anyways, with individual groups aligning themselves under the AQ banner, but pretty much doing their own thing.

So yeah, no new attacks in the US by AQ is a result of shear luck. But you could also say that the fact that the US would easily destroy a single command structure has also prevented more attacks.

Neither viewpoint though makes any dent in the problem of making it absolutely impossible to inflict large casualties and damage on the US.

As an aside, anybody have a tally on the direct costs of the 9/11 attacks? Surely the US's inability to focus on anything but shielding itself from terrorism has some rather substantial direct and indirect costs.

Taken in this light, AQ hasn't attacked the US because it's current strategy is almost maximally efficient.

James.

[introspective]

As of today, you're wrong. But wait, nitwit, the good new is....the did a 'dress rehearsal' for 911 back in 1993. What we saw today just tells me it's another 'dress rehearsal'. If you're going to do something that big, it's like you have no choice but to do a mock drill to figure out the details. It's just like a regular army doing manuvers.

Hence, each attempt by cousin Al is like Manuvers.