[CORed]

I see two possibilities. The first is that the Bush administration is doing such a good job in the "War on Terror" that Al Qaeda has had no opportunitis to mount further attacks. Yeah, I know, pretty far-fetched to think that gang of buffoons has gotten something right.

The other possibility is that the threat was vastly overrated in the first place. Maybe Al Queda got really lucky on 9/11. Maybe their crazy plan was so crazy (and our security for air travel so bad) that it worked. Actually, it only worked three out of four times on 9/11. The tactic of hijacking plains with box cutters and flying them into buildings only worked as long as passengers and flight crew didn't realize that worse things than getting sliced with a box cutter would happen if they cooperated. The passengers on the fourth flight realized that they had nothing to lose and everything to gain by fighting back.

In the first few months after 9/11, in an effort to prevent any more attacks using a method that was already obsolete, our leaders tightened airport security before having adequate staff in place, resulting in huge backups in the screening lines, which meant that we now had huge crowds of people in the unsecured part of airport terminals. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I expected suitcase bombs, or suicide bombers, since Al Queda seems to have an inexplicable (to me anyway) liking for suicide attacks, in the airport terminals. As luck would have it, Al Queda's leaders failed to anticipate this development, and failed to take advantage of the opportunity after it developed.

At this time, the whole government, hell, the whole country, was pretty much running around like chickens with their heads cut off, so I can't buy the notion that the Bush gang had anyting to do with it. When you look at Al Queda's history, other than 9/11, their successful attacks have amounted to a few suicide bombings that haven't in the grand scheme of things, amounted to much more than a nuisance. This is not to minimize the tragedy for the people they have killed and their families, but, in truth, our efforts should have directed at rounding these folks up and killing them or arresting them. Hell, this is the same gang of clowns whose operatives got caught after the 1993 WTC bombing because they tried to get the deposit back on the rental truck they blew up. We're not dealing with rocket scientists here, thank God.

Instead, our leaders decided to invade Iraq, and use the attack as an excuse to advance their agenda to turn our country into a fascist police state. We are now bogged down in occupations in Iraq, and Afghanistan that, if anything, are strenthening the terrorists. We had more cause to invade Saudi Arabia than Iraq. Our efforts in Afghanistan should have been directed at catching the bad guys, not nation building. We are fortunate indeed that our enemy is almost as incompetent as our leadership. Were than not the case, we would be in deep trouble indeed. Well, we are in deep trouble, but not from Al Queda.