We keep doing what we've been doing and when the Iraqi government is strong enough to take care of the defense of the country, we leave.

I recall what a captain in Iraq said in an interview, I believe in Nov. 2005, "If I depended on the news media for all my information, I'd be depressed too."

Regarding the seriousness of bin Laden as a threat, study Islamic history. The northward advance of Islam was stopped in southern France and the Moors fell back into Spain whence they were finally expelled by Ferdinand and Isabelle in 1492. It is called the Reconquesta.

The armies of the Ottoman Sultan, Suleyman the Great, broke on the walls of Vienna and Suleyman died shortly thereafter.

The Muslim world went into an eclipse both politically and culturally.
The drive had been to establish Islam worldwide just as the Prophet had commanded. Only in Africa did it continue and eventually, it too slackened.

Muslims have not forgotten their glory years. They remember the Crusades like some Southerners remember the Civil War.

Now bin Laden offers to get it all back and pay the world back for treating the followers of Allah like dogs. Can you blame them for supporting him? And even if they don't, they are afraid to speak out, just as some people in the American South were afraid to speak out against the Klan, or Christians today are loath to speak out against our own Fundamentalists.

I think the threat is very serious and I don't believe the War on Terror can be "won" but I do think (and hope) that the bin Ladens of this world can be contained.

Troll