Some Of The Guys In The Northern

Bin Laden Is Not Well Read And He's Not Sophisticated, But He Will Have Worked Out Very Coldly What America Would Do.

War Is Primarily Not About Victory Or Defeat But About Death And The Infliction Of Death. It Represents The Total Failure Of The Human Spirit.

If It Is Bin Laden, He's A Very Intelligent Guy. He's Been Planning His War For A Long Time. I Remember The Last Time I Met Him In 1997 In Afghanistan. And Bin Laden Said To Me "from This Mountain, Mr. Robert, Upon Which You Are Sitting, We Beat The Russian Army And Helped Break The Soviet Union. And I Pray To God That He Allows Us To Turn America Into A Shadow Of Itself." When I Saw The Pictures Of New York Without The World Trade Center, New York Looked Like A Shadow Of Itself.

At The End Of The Day, Bin Laden's Interest Is Not Washington And New York, It's The Middle East. He Wants Saudi Arabia. He Wants To Get Rid Of The House Of Saud.

I Don't Like The Definition 'war Correspondent'. It Is History, Not Journalism, That Has Condemned The Middle East To War. I Think 'war Correspondent' Smells A Bit, Reeks Of False Romanticism: It Has Too Much Of The Whiff Of Victorian Reporters Who Would View Battles From Hilltops In The Company Of Ladies, Immune To Suffering, Only Occasionally Glancing Towards The Distant Pop-pop Of Cannon Fire.