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Al Qaeda is dead. We were fortunate that Bin Laden had no coherent strategy. We were ripe for panic-driven crash after 9/11. He didn't need a spectacular follow up attack, all he had to do was a series of simple truck bombs, Chechen-style hostage takings, etc. to make our government seem helpless. Now, we could take another hit and continue rolling.

What was UBL thinking? Was he as dumb as he seems? Didn't he know that we would wipe him and his cronies out in our response? He knew we would come at him with the Northern Alliance so he killed Massoud in an attempt to weaken them. Did he think that his vaunted Mujahideen would defeat our forces like the Soviets? I guess he forgot that the Muj were supported and organized by the USA and that's why the Soviets had to pull out. What an idiot.

While I do not argue for complacency, I also believe that Al Qaeda is pretty much dead. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were the most visible events of the war on terrorism but they were not the only events. President Bush told us shortly after 9/11 that many facets of this war would be invisible to the American people. You can be sure that we took out a lot of terrorists besides those in Afghanistan and Iraq through covert means. I just got done reading "Bush's War" by Bob Woodward (good read) and it documents how CIA agents were given suitcases full of cash to go abroad and "make things happen." The full story may never be told but I think it is a safe bet that we secretly "whacked" a lot of terrorists over the past 18 months.

Some argue that the terrorists are waiting for the right time to strike again. But I find it very hard to believe that they are sitting around while we totally destroy their networks and cut off their money supplies all over the globe.

The terrorists stated goal was to destroy the United States by attacking its economy. Think of the economic troubles just a few Stinger missles could have wreaked on our economy. All it would have taken was a couple of planes brought down by Stingers over Thanksgiving weekend (after 9/11) and the vast majority of Americans would be too skitterish to fly again anytime soon. Bring down another plane or two over the next few months and most Americans would vow to never fly again. I know that I wouldn't. I recently flew to Florida as hostilities were breaking out in Iraq and I was so nervous about the prospects of a SAM attack by some terrorist out on a raft that I flew out of Manchester, NH instead of Logan.

Anyway, I think we have devastated Al Qaeda and it is possible that they are finished for good. But I do not think we should end the war on terrorism. We need to keep on flushing them out and killing them. We must not stop until we have had several years without any terrorist attack whatsoever.

"Al Qaeda is dead."

I strongly disagree. They may be quiet for awhile, and they may be a long time regaining their pre-911 strength, but they're not dead. They will only be dead when Islam is dead, and that ain't gonna happen.

What was UBL thinking? Didn't he know that we would wipe him and his cronies out in our response?

What would make him think that? He'd already bombed a marine barracks, an embassy, the USS Cole, and driven us out of Somalia with one gunfight. Every time he did one of those things, Clinton blew up one of his tents with a cruise missile. He had no clue what was coming.

Did he think that his vaunted Mujahideen would defeat our forces like the Soviets?

Yes, he did. He said so many times. He thought he'd already beaten the tough guys; we were going to be a piece of cake.

Re: #6, and We were fortunate that Bin Laden had no coherent strategy.

Everything you say in #6 is so true. If the jihadis were going to go to the trouble of doing 9-11, it made no sense to do it without an immediate, sustained and diverse followup, no matter how low level, as long as it could instill a sense of fear and chaos.

Certainly the Washington D.C. snipers showed how effective a followup could have been. And maybe we will find out the anthrax thing was part of a followup, along with other things which were stopped.

But the lack of a coherent followup might have been the luckiest thing to happen to this country. Now, we have them on the run, and we have a coherent, long-term strategy to defeat them, assuming a liberal does not become president. Our victories have made us feel more confident, and the whole psychology has changed.

Like the Civil War, which went on long after it had been effectively decided, the War on Jihad might have been won in the weeks between 9-11 and the destruction of the Taliban.

What was UBL thinking? Was he as dumb as he seems? Didn't he know that we would wipe him and his cronies out in our response?

He was just another megalomaniac, albeit a very dangerous one.