[oceanview]

they had alot going for them on 9/11, mostly 8 years of a do-nothing administration trying to stop them. their subsequent operation have not been anywhere as complex, mostly truck bombs on soft targets.

[Hegemony Cricket]

I agree that the total lack of coherence in our international policy under the clinton administration enabled/encouraged the islamists to do what they did on 9/11.

On the other hand, other people smarter than me have pointed out the pattern of attacks against American targets (not necessarily just on American soil, but targets of a primarily American nature), and the fact that these attacks have occurred at approximate two year intervals. My point was that 9/11 was a watershed event, and it has been just over two years ago. If this lag time correlates to their planning time, which it would logically seem to, that would square with the administrations comment that the terrorists are past the planning phase, and into the operational phase.