As I'd said, there is no question that the murderers have ground assets in place in this country. We have to be very careful not to enflame anti-arab sentiment towards fine, heartbroken US citizens of arab background but unfortunately there are bastards here who helped. It is going to be very difficult to get resolution here.

I'd predicted and clearly support the policy of including govts who shield these murders as co-conspitators and us making "no distinction". I hope that those were not just words. The president should ask for a formal declaration of war and should continue and be innovative in changing the ground rules.

The major reason that thousands died is the misguided policies this country put in place inhibiting personal intelligence operations. First in the late 70s we outlawed killing enemy leaders. The bad guys know this. 2nd, in the 90s in a political payback for Iran-Contra very shortsighted policies that inhibited our people operatives from using money and dealing with known terrorist types blinded our human ops. Marty Meehan's (D MASS) call for better elint is folly. We need to unfetter our CIA personal ops and deal with the bad guys. It's the bad guys who know what's happening. The terrorists KNOW we have elint and don't send nice email messages with their plans. We need to get real and get personal. I think that this administration has the will. They'd better.

-philw (over being shocked, moving towards seriously pissed)