I didn't know whether to scurry to my terrorism shelter or wave the white flag but I knew we were in trouble. I knew it when I heard that Al Jazeera, the voice of the Arab world, had broadcast an audiotape by Osama bin Laden's compatriot and al Qaeda's number-two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, which said that al Qaeda forces had the US on the run. He declared that US forces were "on the run in Afghanistan and elsewhere. He even suggested that we were on the run in our own homeland. All I could think to myself was, "What should...