To iamjohnne,
I agree entirely with your sentiments.

What does concern me, is just how in hell we're gonna get him? (assuming all conclusive evidence points to bin Laden.)

First off, eventhough Pakistan has pledged total cooperation with the U.S., this would also mean that their intelligence is going to completely cooperate with the U.S. as they have LOTS of up-to-date intelligence info on his whereabouts and activities - but will they? And are they going to be willing to share ALL of this info, and stick their necks out for possible terrorist reprisals on their own soil as well?

Second, carpet bombing the shit out of Afghanistan is not going to kill the terrorists except by sheer fluke, and while I don't have any problem seeing all the Taliban wiped off the face of the earth, I don't want to see a lot of innocent people die in the process, unless of course like Sadamm, they choose to use their people as human hostages and put them in harm's way to sensitive and stragetic areas. But if they choose to do that then that's entirely THEIR doing, and we shouldn't allow that kind of a guilt trip to intimidate us. (Rest assured CNN will be broadcasting those images nightly. Thanks for your patriotism and help with moral and the war effort.)

Still without the use of massive ground troups, an air war by itself will be useless in achieving the objective. It had no effect in the Balkans or in Iraq. And remember the Soviets had 8+ years in there with everything they could throw at them, and they got their asses kicked, and at the time they had all the military capability that the U.S. had.

Lastly, the American public has never had the stomach to fight a long protracted war since WW II because then the cause was to rid the world of facism. Sure the government and the military may indeed have the resolve, but will the public over the long term? In light of the shocking events never before witnessed to this extreme on U.S. soil, they may very well have the resolve to see this through, because once again it is in essence another form of facism, but more sinister because the enemy is not readily identifiable.

But you have to ask yourself, whether the American people will be able to handle all the images being shown on CNN after each days carnage, since you know that the media will be completely biased towards the victims, whether they were innocent or terrorists. And will they be able to stomach seeing soldiers coming home maimed or in body bags over a long period of time? Potentially talking years here. Further, (and I don't want to sound like the grim reaper) but expect more terrorist "reprisals" on U.S. soil once things get underway in the campaign. The security measures that are now in place in light of Tuesday, will seem like a walk in the park, compared to what will need to be down, to minimize further carnage on U.S. soil. There are two generations of people currently living in the world who no concept of what it's like to live in wartime. I'm afraid many bubbles are going to be burst.

Ideally, it would be excellent if in addition to the U.S. and Nato, China and Russia would help to exert enornmous pressure on Afghanistan to just hand him over for extradition, and for the rest of the terrorist cells operating there to be expunged from the country, in exchange for avoiding a full military onslaught. Or at the very least be willing to share any and all intelligence they've compiled about Afghanistan.

I'm skeptical about it, and I'm very cynical that all terrorist cells world wide are going to be wiped out. For every cell that is wiped out, 10 more will pop up to "avenge their fallen comrades", and it just becomes a circular thing with no end in site as witnessed in Israel.

And even if by some miracle they were actually able to wipe out every single terrorist cell on the planet with a beef against the U.S. (not gonna happen) a LOT of innocent people will die in the process, and make the casualty numbers as seen on Tuesday look like a drop in the bucket. The casualty numbers overall will be comprable to WW II and Vietnam combined.
I wish I had the answers to all of this.

Thanks for indulging me.