Tom,

>
>How true. And the world is a very different place than it was just a week ago.
>
>Tom

I don't know. Only if we let it be that way. DC has been like this as long as I've known it. In Crystal City (that's next door to the Pentagon) they didn't have trash cans for years because of fear over bombs. In the Metro if you see a suitcase or package left on a bench, you don't pick it up and take it to lost and found, you get security. I will never forget seeing an elderly overwight security officer, with about as much knowledge of bombs as I do, gingerly trying to poke open a lunch box with a stick. Brave and ludicrous at the same time.

Suicide attacks have a long tradition, so we have a pretty good idea what to expect. The number of people who can kill themselves effectively is really small and you use them up very fast. They are hard to handle and dangerous to their own organization. I hate to talk about ten year time frames but I think that's what were looking at.

Our attittude about the president is (quite successfully) that we will make it hard but killing him won't change anything. That is the greatest deterrence possible to assassination.

In some ways the most useful deterrent in the future would be if the bombings failed to accomplish one of their primary objectives -- the further alienation of the US from Islamic countries. The truth is that if we want to succeed in eradicating bin Laden we will need the support of Islam.