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MMMMMMM no one wants to bargain with Al Qaeda. The point is not to do things because Osama thinks they are right, it is to do the right thing by us. If he agrees with it, who cares? If Osama said you should love your Mom, would u not just because he says so?

No one is saying we should cease support for Israel because osama says so. Some argue that our support for israel is unfair for moral reasons, regardless of what osama thinks. Same goes for withdrawing troops from iraq.

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The point I'm trying to make is that al-Qaeda's demands (and al-Qaeda itself) are unreasonable. Their insistence that all US troops leave Saudi Arabia because it is "holy soil" is unreasonable, but not a major issue (and I think we did leave Saudi Arabia). Al-Qaeda's plans to drive out all Westerners from the entire Middle East and to thereby "purify" "their lands", are utterly unreasonable, and just as crazy as if Pat Robertson were to demand that all non-Christians must be driven out of America. I point out such things because there have been some posters who have supposed that al-Qaeda might leave us alone if we were simply to act more mindfully regarding their concerns. But that is wishful thinking only, and is not possible given the unreasonable and intractable nature of their absolute fanaticism, and the unworkable and unreasonable nature of their demands. For instance one condition OBL set forth for al-Qaeda to cease its attacks on America, was that America convert to Islam. Totally ridiculous.