You gotta wonder if these guys had a clue what the response would be after 9/11. Almost definitely not. The most likely expected a Clinton-like or Carter-like response (i.e. basically nothinig). Instead, about 90% of their Al Qaeda comrades are now dead, another 5% are on the run and the other 5% are living in Pakistan.

Osama. He's dead, too. AQ just can't admit it.

I disagree, George. Even before 9-11 the far left (there were fewer of them) talked a great talk about how warmongering and frightening Reagan was and how militaristic Bush was bound to be. If someone were to go by public statements about Bush prior to 9-11 they would have every reason to believe that he'd react with thoughtless violence.

I think that what Osama and friends hoped to accomplish by 9-11 was a reaction, possibly even the nuclear bombing of mecca, that would mobilize the enitre Muslim world who would rise up and defeat the West and usher in the Caliphate. I believe they even made statements outright saying so. (Though not the bombing mecca part, because admitting that was the plan might backfire.)

That's the basic trouble that terrorists have... general apathy to their cause. Even when terrorists were German and not Islamic the goal of terror attacks was to wake up the population to the oppressive nature of the government and since most people didn't think that the government was oppressive enough to become violent over, the purpose of the terror attack was to force the government to be more oppressive so that people couldn't be apathetic anymore.

This was also the thinking of Manson's little cult... blacks were apathetic and didn't seem to be on the verge of armed revolution the way that Manson thought they should be so he and his followers committed a horrific murder of a pregnant white actress and tried to set it up so that blacks would be blamed for the crime. A crackdown on black Americans would follow and they'd realize that they *had* to go to war.

The 9-11 attacks were classically terrorist. Some of the bombings meant to incite sectarian violence are classically terrorist in nature. The goal being to force others to do your dirty work for you. Other attacks are a simpler one-punch attempt to terrorize the population. Effective but less complex.

I think that the people who carried out the 9-11 attacks seriously misjudged the response they would get but what they didn't expect was that George Bush would pound the fact, over and over and over, that we were NOT at war with Islam. That Islam is a peaceful religion. Now if that is true or not, it was absolutely imperative that he take that stand and he did. In that one step, without a mindless retaliation against Islam as a whole, the terrorists lost. Not the war, but that battle. They *needed* mindless retaliation against Islam and they didn't get it.

The measured response, framing the war in Afghanistan as Operation Enduring Freedom and *not* bombing the country to glass (and don't we all remember people calling for just that?) was also refusing to play by the terrorists playbook.

I believe that when all is said and done the invasion of Iraq was necessary. If not Iraq it would have needed to be some other action equivalent. We *can't* bomb mecca. There are only a few choices we have to bring the war to the enemy and force the region to become something with which we can live without playing the game the terrorists need us to play.

And if nothing else they know that if we win Iraq we're going to win the whole thing. People with liberty and prosperity aren't easily motivated to fight. That's why they're doing everything the possibly can to keep life in Iraq as violent and unstable as possible.

That's the war now. I don't understand why so many people would just as soon see us lose it.

Err, please correct the awkward syntax of the page's code. It's screwing the whole thing up.
For example, on the main page, it looks like THIS post was never "closed" so to speak, and here, the sidebar is covering half of the main page so half of what i'm writing is covered by the "nice tan congressman" advertisement.

Synova: Well said. Thank you.

-How come these Al Quaeda queers are always laughing it up with other guys?? Ohh I GET IT!!

Now the investigators have the proof, and only the flakiest of anti-American fantasists can go on claiming that Bin Laden, Atta, Jarrah and co had no hand in September 11.

Cue Lee et all in 5...4...

Lee is the guy on the left, so to speak, in the picture.

Mitchell,
No, Lee is below the frame, felating Atta while gibing the other fellow a hand job. Hence the smiles.

SCSIwyzzy, you're too hard on Lee. Remember two things, the lefties have real thin skin and are prone to the 'whine' and fits of temper like Slick Willie, and god said to look out for fools and the retarded or was it drunks, Lee is both so you have a double whammy on you.

Nothing will ever convince the retards on the left of AQ's involvement in 9-11, even after Usama bragged about it. They have supported the terrorists for so long they think of them as family members. Well some of them probably are.

Scrapiron,
I think it is Atta that is hard on Lee. Or rather, in Lee.

Lee recently admitted he isn't here for debate or discussion, only here to kick up trouble. As such, he deserves no consideration.

Hatred begets hatred.

Nuke your Christian ass you fucking zelots lick my ass you pig you fuck.Atta is evil,so what?,and you are so good go fuck something you sad fuck.