Well, Kendall, we're pretty sure you're not a car -- never heard no car make folk music, have you? If you were one, though, I reckon you'd be a beautiful Bugatti!

Doug -- what we rail against, as Kendall said, is the awful consequences of our short-term thinking and manipulative foreign policies over the years. By playing "divide and conquer" amongst the power-hungry in SOuth America and the Middle East we have firmly established our national image as manipulative and somewhat bullying, liberal with dough for purchasing favors. I do not agree that Bin L 's crowd had good reason to strike as they did -- I think both they and we ourselves could acheive much more through the intelligent use of public relations and management skills.

Maybe we need to think our policy of getting involved heavily in local situations which we do not understand, and then lashing about trying to "cure" our lack of understanding by spending money. Part of the problem is that we are, by and large, an angry nation, and thus do not have the intelligence or patience to deal well with covertly aggressive groups who practice deception and indirect hostility. WE tend to call on folks to put up their dukes, which from their point of view would surely look counter-productive!

As for doing what Osama wants, I am pretty sure even he did not wish for so many of his troops to be exterminated by AMerican munitions, nor for the Taliban to be ousted from the Afghanian government. So I am at a loss to understand what this idea means that we are playing to his script. It's a cute rhetorical device but it would be a lot more persuasive with particulars added.

A