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Thanks for post #27, it echos my thoughts exactly.

We must not underestimate the man who destroyed the WTC with boxcutter knives.

Certainly he has a long term strategy, and does not plan to lose.

His "appearance, death and resurrection" would in the minds of hundreds of millions of Moslems "prove" that he is the Mahdi, and make following his orders mandatory even for the so-called "moderate" Moslems living down your street.

I even think that his "feeble" anthrax attack may have been carefully crafted and thought out. It "blurs" the line of the threshhold of first use of Bio weapons. Bio weapons have now been used, with no nuclear retaliation, which has been our announced policy for 50 years. The next Bio attack will just be a matter of higher numbers, the threshhold has been crossed.

I think that they may have smallpox, antibiotic resistant plague or another Bio weapon ready to go, but first we must cause some outrage which can then be "responded to" with that new germ or virus.

It's going to be a hell of a year and decade.

Clearly are thoughts are along similar lines regarding what the Anthrax attack is all about. We have not responded to it with nuclear retaliation and as such our entire MAD philosophy is now in question. Will a small tactical nuclear weapon in an American city generate such a rsponse? No one really knows anymore? Would a smallpox epidemic that killed say 20 million Americans generate a nuclear response? No one knows anymore. One thing we do know is that there would likely be some who would demand clear footprints leading to some nation before we launched.

The "outrage' you describe need not necessarily be an "American" outrage. it could as easily be an Israeli response to the terrorism they face.

Stay well - Stay safe - stay armed - Yorktown

The whole issue of whether OBL will show up, if he shows up, shows the lack of thought in the "bomb first and ask questions later" strategy.

Much of his organization is not in Afghanistan and will not be affected either way. If OBL chooses to be thought of as dead, and he is still alive, he will be able to carry on with less activity focused on him. If he's actually dead, the organization can decide either to make it seem like he's alive and has outfoxed the US, it can declare he's dead and let everyone get complacent, or it can say nothing.

But the types of weapons we're using don't make forensic identification easy so we may never know for sure, and will just have to keep guessing. In other parts of the world this will keep his legend alive.