Yes, I think you can make that argument, but in doing so, you set off on a path which passes through some very dangerous territory.

Consider, for example, any future dispute with (pick one) China, Russia, (fill in the blank). Are we not leaving the door wide open for others to justify their actions based on this same argument - that removal of (fill in the blank--U.S president, congressman, foreign head of state, ...) would solve the world's problem or current crisis?

After all, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Further, while I am in agreement with some of your remarks here, I think we need to be very careful when making fuzzy associations between the entire Muslim world, and the terror attacks of 911.

And in any event, the available circumstantial evidence I've seen does not point toward Muslims, OBL, or any of the other usual suspects.

No, it points elsewhere.

In your closing paragraph, I think you begin to home in the some of the complications we face in trying to finger the bad guys.

Finally, we need to be extremely alert and highly skeptical of "evidence" which conveniently materializes at just the right moment to implicate the usual suspects.

Consider for example, the improbable case of Mohammed Atta's passport. Only slightly singed after its miraculous journey from exploding plane through burning, collapsing towers, this "incriminating evidence" is conveniently found on the streets of Manhatten in the days after Black Tuesday.

Magic bullet redux.

The gullible - and aren't there a lot of them? - greedily swallow such "evidence" hook, line and sinker, but in the eyes of those who look a little more closely, far from implicating Atta, this clumsily planted evidence reveals the presence of something completely different.

sp