Hi Brett and All,

We don't know how the Muslim world will react to any action being planned. Remember that similar warnings were made in the Gulf War - no Muslim state would support us because we supported Israel, there would be tens of thousands of Allied casualties, Sadam had a trap to spring on the Allies, etc., etc.

Yes, we must be careful. Very careful.

Yes, we must carefully consider the possible reactions of Muslim states and groups. We must consider how the populations in Allied nations react. Having Pakistan's government fall to Taliban supporters, and having the Taliban get access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons (at minimum their nuclear weapons technology) is certainly a nightmare scenario...

But we can't be paralized by what might happen. We shouldn't let the terrorists' luck in achieving their goals make us believe that they've considered every contingency. We've got to be clear headed and work toward achieving our long-term goals, not merely strike out at the parties responsible for Tuesday's attacks.

Remember that [link|http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/alqaeda.html|Al-Qaeda] is only a few thousand, or maybe a few tens of thousands of people at most. There are over a billion Muslims in the world. It's a small group. It's not clear that any sort of mass uprising or war between Islam and the West is in the offing.

Remember that the West has defeated terrorist cells before. You don't hear much about the Red Brigades any more, for example. Or the Symbinaese Liberation Army.

We need to understand bin Laden's appeal. [link|http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/interviews/al-fagih.html#alqaeda|This] interview provides one view.

I'm heartened that we haven't struck back yet. It's going to take a while to get the information necessary to make sure that any actions we take support our long-term goals. I'm confident that the people in the US and Allied governments realize this.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.