Many interesting thoughts, though, as Troll points, out, we have gotten into a lot of trouble by providing support and training for those whose permanent interests are opposed to our own--also, there is not a lot of "deterent" for suicide bombers--a covert war or an overt war might even provide more support for them--

The main thing is that we have always had, and will always have, mortal enemies. We have to wake up to that, acknowledge it, and make it a priority to minimize our exposure.

The bombers succeeded, not because they had the support of any nation or group in particular(though they probably did), but because they identified some obvious weak spots in our airport, aircraft and in-flight security systems, because some clod architecture professor explained the structural flaws in the WTC to a "student" who appears to have documented connections to terrorist organizations, and should never have been allowed into the country, let alone the school, because we chose not to screen Saudi students who apply for American flight schools, etc, etc--The biggest point being, no one took the possibility of terrorist attacks seriously, even though WTC had been bombed by terrorists before, and even after the Oklahoma City Bombing was so successful--Did everyone just figure those things were islolated incidents, and would never happen again?