All in all the right wing blather comes from a failure to understand the nature or history of terrorism as a political tool.

Far from being a modern phenomena, terrorism goes at least back to Phineas in 1275 BCE when he exercised his "righteous rage" by killing two priests for daring to worship other gods. This act became the rally point for the 1st Century CE group know as Secarii (dagger people). they showed their zeal by electing to face starvation rather than capitulation to the Romans. This tactic worked to frighten the Romans as they feared martydom would stir up even more resistence in other areas of the empire.

Moden terrorism and insurgency gain importance because of the efficacy of the mass media. The improvements in communications technology when the telegraph was invented meant word of a terrorist act and the reaction to that act could be spread from city to city within minuets.

If we can accept that terrorism is the rational, deliberate use (or threat) of force to obtain attention to a particular political objective then we can understand that each and every advance in mass communications has provided better opportunities and a wider forum for the terrorist. Terrorism can best be understood as a kind of theatre of the weak.

When a terrorist group prospers and grows it metomorphises in an insurgency. Mao Zedong illustrated the insurgent group required the politizing of bystanders and developing them into a support base. The advantage of the terrorist is that he never need win, only to avoid losing--ie getting caught--to win his battle.

In this case, when you can see Bin Laden on TV, decked out in his golden finery, he is winning because preznit Bush hasn't made him lose and obviously hasn't caught him.

Publius