The PRESIDENT: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all. . .The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. . . "

the President continues explaining how he is fighting this threat. After a lengthy answer, the reporter that was referred to as Kelly [Wright?], again demands, "But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?"

Again the President: "Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And again I don't know where he is. I"ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban."
"But once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became -- we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his al Qaeda killers anymore. And if we -- excuse me for a minute-- and if we find a training camp, we'll take care of it."

The President was interrupted again but he continued explaining the plan, that its a long struggle, etc. then he concluded giving the reason I, and many others, will be voting for him:

"And I can assure you, I am not going to blink. And I'm not going to get tired. Because I know what is at stake. And history has called us to action, and I am going to seize this moment for the good of the world, for peace in the world and for freedom."

He also could have added, but didn't, 'even if it costs me the re-election, I will do what is best for this country.'

I know quite a number of people in the Intel community in Washington, in England, and in a couple of other places. I worked with them for 20+ years. Most of them are brighter than the average poster on this or any other blog. Just because YOU don't understand the underlying pattern of events doesn't mean one doesn't exist. The longer I watch this war - from the sidelines by necessity, not desire - the more I see the game plan behind certain events, and the more intelligently I see some things being done. That doesn't mean there aren't mistakes made, but a lot of the things people here (and elsewhere) complain about only highlight their lack of military experience and lack of knowledge of certain capabilities and techniques. I see an overall plan that's working, that will significantly reduce the threat of terrorism not only against our country but the entire coalition, and the eventual destruction of the entire web, one strand at a time. That's a much better strategy than knocking off the head spider and leaving his web in place.

Notice that we have not heard from UBL in some time. IF he is still alive, he is spending all of his time avoiding capture. What sould we do in the GWOT, sit on our hands and wait for UBL to show up?

Iraq, was and is a haven for terrorists. Sadaam did suport terror, until we stopped him. Iraq lies in the middle of a hotbed of terrorists countries, strategically vital to winning the GWOT.

Who said anything about Saddam sponsoring terror? Certainly no Democrat would ever claim any link between Saddam and terrorist attacks (least of all against the USA). So, your 'bizarre non sequitur' goes out the window.

So the motive for invading Iraq keeps on being reinvented. Now it is supposed to be 'democratizing the Middle East?'. What happened to WMD? Al-Qaeda links? Oh, no proof, that's right. I democratizing the ME is a real goal, he should have invaded Saudi Arabia, argauably the most totalitarian regime ou there, actively sponsoring terrorism to boot!

Leaving the convenience of that argument aside, and acknowledging that I'm not a counter terrorism expert, doesn't it at least seem plausible that capturing Osama would advance the war against terrorism more than the invasion of Iraq did? The argument isn't that the organization will just collapse with him out of the loop, the argument is that this is the man who put together an organization that literally means "The Base", as in "the database", and would almost certainly have *a lot* of information that we could use to tear it down.

I suppose if you assume that Osama will never be caught, the next best idea would be to change the context of his doctrine of hatred by democratizing the Middle East, but that's just a guess right now. On the other hand, we *know* that capturing him would set Al Qaeda, and other related organizations, back quite a bit.