Weak responses to past terrorist attacks on Americans overseas have contributed to Bin Laden's and the Taliban's belief that they could quite possibly get away with such an outrage. The Taliban leadership probably thinks that we'll fire off a few missiles, like before, and that will be it - they just need be lie low for a little while then it'll be back to business as usual.

Golf War example - ten years ago we were comparing Saddam Hussein to Adolph Hitler...then we seemed perfectly content to leave him in power. What kind of message does that send to rogue states supporting terrorism?

I'm also deeply troubled by Buchanan's chronic habit of blaming our support of Israel for all the challenges we face in the Middle-East. Believe it or not, most of the conflicts in that region, in this century, haven't had one damn thing to do with Israel. The Taliban, Bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists want to kill us and destroy Western Civilization NOT because we support Israel, but because our values of personal freedom, secular government, democracy, human rights,etc. are diametrically opposed to their barbaric, fundamentalist religious philosophy. They also seem very offended that more and more of their young people want to be free instead of living in the Dark Ages. (I'd better be careful here or I'll start sounding like the Italian PM...I support freedom and condemn fundamentalism, whether it be Christian, Muslim, or other)