Time and Place
White House press secretary Scott McClellan at yesterday's White House press briefing:

MR. McCLELLAN: And as I indicated, clearly, the al Qaeda leaders and the terrorists are on the run. They're under a lot of pressure. We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business. The terrorists started this war, and the President made it clear that we will end it at a time and place of our choosing. We continue to pursue all those who are seeking to do harm to the American people, and to bring them to justice.

We will end it at a time and place of our choosing? You mean we are in control?
Question:
Why not now? Why, if this is true, didn't we end it in Afghanistan in 2002? I mean, it seems only logical. Why not "choose" to end it right now?
I heard a very interesting comment on PBS's News Hour last night. Jim Lehrer was interviewing Mamoun Fandy, a Middle East specialist at Rice University, about the latest bin Laden tape. Make of this whatever you wish, but here is an excerpt from the interview:

MAMOUN FANDY: Right, but this particular tape is not terribly inspiring, just looking at the language of it. This is the first tape of bin Laden that has no single verse from the Koran. It does not have the flowery language of Arabic.
It seems to me that it is written in English first, and then translated into Arabic. It is very western style of tape. It is not very characteristic of bin Laden, at least it tells me that the non-Arabic speaking within the al-Qaida network are taking over the organization --
JIM LEHRER: You mean he didn't write this is what you are suggesting?
MAMOUN FANDY: The Arabic speakers in al-Qaida, the parts that are coming from the Arab world, are losing to the non-Arabic speaker, so it's really becoming more of a South Asian organization, rather than an Arab organization.

Terrorism is politics.