I disagree totally. I think that al Queda correctly predicted and anticipated our probable response, and I think that Bush responded exactly as they'd always hoped he would. Bush has played right into their hands at every possible turn. They could not have hoped for more. Everything Bush has done has helped them, and greatly strengthened their cause, and expanded their support base enormously all over the globe. That was their real goal: not simply to kill a few thousand silly Americans (that's just small potatos) their real goal was to mobilize all those that are sympathetic to their ideals and their cause, and to give them hope, and they accomplished that beautifully. They have been positively brilliant in this regard. It's pure genius. We are now seeing the birth of an entirely new (and truly massive) generation of terrorists, and the beginning of a new and far more extensive campaign of terrorism that the influx of all these new supporters will now permit.

Just as Japan "awoke the sleeping giant" when they attacked Pearl Harbor in WWII Bush has likewise awakened the sleeping giant of international terrorism, with all his actions since 9-11. And that was the ultimate goal that al Queda had really hoped to achieve all along.

They have proved beyond dispute that even a very small group of highly dedicated people can turn this entire country upside-down sooo very easily. And they've proved that we can be provoked into making sweeping changes in our entire society quite easily, and that if this one little group can do that to us then any other tiny group can, too.

The fact of the matter is that al Queda is a hell of a lot smarter than Bush and his cronies (and most of the American people as well) are, or ever will be.

The whole situation reminds me somewhat of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968. Even though it was an incredibly costly military disaster for the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese forces it was also an enormously important political "turning-point" victory for them, since their heavy sacrifice actually brought about the final collapse of American support for the war here at home, and led directly to the US pullout from Vietnam. So even though they lost far more people than they killed, and basically crippled themselves militarily in the process, they still won in the end, since it still brought about a full military and political victory in the end. As paradoxical as it may seem they truly did win by losing, for all intents and purposes. And al Queda's ultimate goals are much the same. To get the support they need al Queda needs the US itself to really stir up the entire Arab world, and totally enrage their people. Bush is very busy doing just that, as we speak.

It does not matter how many terrorists we hunt down and kill. The more of them we kill, the more of them we eventually breed, that's all. The only way al Queda could have lost would have been if we had done nothing; if we had not responded at all. That alone would have consituted an absolute failure for them. Only then would their sacrifices have been in vain.

Don't be so naive: all along the way we have done exactly what these terrorist originally hoped and prayed we would do. We have responded just as they'd hoped we would when they first made their plans. And we continue to be the puppet at the end of the string; not the puppetmaster we mistakenly believe ourselves to be these days. They are the ones calling all the shots, not us, and they will continue to do so for as long as we continue to respond in kind. As long as we insist upon doing even more of what it was that made them hate us so badly to begin with.

It sure doesn't take a rocket scientist to see all this.