As a friend of mine says, "Bin laden is smarter than Bush and will outsmart him time and time again."

No doubt.

Yeah right, Marko, that's what we conservatives want you (and those CIA and state department snobs that think that a poly sci degree gives them more insight than the rest of us)to think... Just keep underestimating us like Reagan, and we'll save you from terrorists. We'll wait about 15 years for you to realize that you were wrong.

I don't buy it.

The terrorists no longer have safe haven in Afghanistan and Iraq (though they are still there, and we are killing them everyday).

The terrorists in the tribal lands of Pakistan are getting punished.

The terrorists in Saudi Arabia are getting punished.

Most of the senior Al Qaeda leadership are dead or captured.

Yeah. Right. Bush is just playing into OBLs hands.

i don't buy it for a second. It's clearly politically motivated.

I don't know...I think if Bush were really playing into bin Laden's hands, bin Laden wouldn't be able to resist crowing about it more. He has the Standard-Issue Villain's Weak Spot that most terrorists of his stripe seem to have; he can't shut up even when it would benefit him immeasurably (witness that post-9/11 tape. OK, it benefited him in the sense that it let the world know "Hi! We're al-Qaeda!" but he might as well have painted a giant target sign on himself while he was at it; not bright for the alleged charismatic center of a movement).

Personally I'm guessing that bin Laden is dead. If he's not, it would be very strange that he'd manage to resist doing an Emperor Palpatine-style "Everything is happening as I have foreseeeeen" shtick for 2+ years now. As for what he would really have wanted, God knows. Probably he's got about six people vying for the position of new top dog, all of whom have their own opinions about what he would have wanted. But bin Laden sitting back and chuckling at how Bush is playing into his hands...no.

If we're doing what OBL wants, why doesn't OBL come out and say that himself?

I agree emphatically with Sonetka and Rhesa

We know for a fact that al Qaeda carried out the Madrid bombing to take out Bush's allies. The theory that they want Bush in is therefore a load... and that hard-hitting interviewer Josh Marshall has no interest in asking such a thing to Anonny.

"Anonymous" is clearly a person who has a great deal of knowledge of bin Laden, al Queda and Islamo-fascism, but he's drawing all the wrong conclusions...and if this is a reflection of how things are viewed in America's intelligence agencies, then a major housecleaning is in order.

What he fails to take into account is that bin Laden is a fish which swims in a sea of discontent - like others, I believe that bin Laden is actually dead, but "bin Laden" will be with us as long as the War on Terrorism continues, if you catch my meaning - as long as the Arab/Moslem masses are repressed and hopeless, the bin Ladens of the Arab/Moslem world will be able to recruit and carry out attacks - we have to cut the knot.

We cut it either by successfully implanting a reasonably decent democratic regime in Iraq/Afganistan, or we cut it by killing literally tens of millions of Arabs and entering into a remorseless occupation of the Arab/Moslem world. I'm going with President Bush's plan because its the better plan and the more optimistic...

I agree with Mark for once - unless we can produce a corpse, bin Laden will always be with us(at least for 20 years, eventually it gets to a point where you know he'd have to have died of natural causes). He's like the Big Brother of terrorism - the person may or may not exist, but the ideas he represents are very much real and must be stopped.

This is standard thinking among a lot of people. You don't attack because it makes extremists more popular. This line of thinking started way before Islamism. It's also wrong most of the time. Extremists become more popular when a population believes you are attacking them irrationally and they don't have anything to lose.
The Arabs know darn well why we are chasing Islamists, no matter how much they tell themselves that the Mossad or the CIA did 9/11.

maor:
“The Arabs know darn well why we are chasing Islamists, no matter how much they tell themselves that the Mossad or the CIA did 9/11.”

Yeah, right. What the Arabs “know” is that we’re doing it to protect Israel. And why should they believe anything that comes from western governments or that we are interested in bringing them democracy for their own sake. We’d have to do a little better than burning up their resources to prop up autocratic monarchs and taking Arab lands by force to convince the Arab street that the west offers an alternative to hate and bin Laden. Or, we could just bomb them all to Allah.

Bin Laden wants (or wanted) to undermine western unity and sew enmity between Arabs and the west. Anyone who thinks that Bush’s Iraq policy hasn’t advanced those interests, please buy a clue.