<If September 11 comes and goes, and nothing happens (nothing serious in America that is...not a car bomb at some obscure embassy in Africa), I think we will have learned something important:

Al Quaeda may have pretty much shot its wad. At the height of their powers and funding, they managed to mount one attack that got through a loophole in our airline security and hijacking protocols, and accidentally found a structural weak spot in a couple of skyscrapers (I think the terrorists had no real idea the WTC would collapse after the impact).





We will have learned nothing. Because an enemy is wounded and cannot, at the moment, strike is no reason to start ignoring him. If nothing occurs on/around Sept 11, America may well take this attitude. Consider our attention span. TV commercials have been shortened dramatically over the decades for this very reason.

Okay, the argument can be made that they will pick some obscure date to try something just to catch us off guard, but it won't have the same impact and they know it.

Exactly -- and it would require forethought. Their tactics to date have shown this to be a lacking element.

I was kind of surprised that the Fourth of July went by without incident. If September 11 does too, well, maybe they just don't have what it takes any more to top their first big triumph. We'll see.

* Los Angeles airport shooting kills 3
* FBI says inquiry into July 4 shooting a 'terrorism investigation'

P.S. my instinct says they will try poison or something quiet for the next attack. Comments?

I think they’ll want something quick and devastating -- which explains Hussein’s increase in his nuke-parts scavenger hunt.

Al-Quai’da is not dead, merely changing fronts.

And for those under the impression this is not a likely scenario, simply because Hussein insists it could never happen, I tend to turn a deaf ear to the bad guys of the world. I generally back the underdog, but, in Hussein’s case, I would consider his death to be a plus for the history books of the world.

* Nation's Enemies Still Exist; Best Defense Is to Find Them

Dan (just because I cannot see the bad guys doesn't mean they aren't still out there...)