[lugsoul]

I don't agree with the theory, I was merely articulating, in response to the question "why would anyone think UBL wants Bush to win?" I don't think they are correct, but I do think AQ wants as extreme a response from the US as they can get. The immediate effect of a terrorist attack is not the point - the response is the point.

[weegee]

Bill Clinton's strategy was to not respond to the increasingly disastrous attacks. It forced AQ to step up their game and do things that we couldn't blow off.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I haven't seen large scale attacks from AQ since 2001 on American interests. Foreign nations have been pressured by attacks (some stood firm, some ran), but not us.

I don't think the war on Al Qaeda/Taliban/Afghanistan/Iraq... has radicalized muslims (especially in America) so much as given them an excuse to act on their radicalism.

Did the Rodney King verdict cause the blind hatred in the men that beat Reginald Denny with a brick or were they already antisocial racists looking for a fight?