Global war more than bin Laden\nBrian Stewart\nSince the day America was assaulted under open skies, we have, of course, been engaged at war against enemies including, but not restricted to, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. And we have witnessed a patient accumulation of successes -- especially in terms of intelligence-gathering techniques and operations.\nIt is now commonplace to claim that campaign, after originating rather successfully in Afghanistan, has been "diverted" elsewhere. This seems to be self-refuting insofar as the war on terror is global by definition. Osama bin Laden's fleeting liberty is hardly the main obstacle we have encountered. The chief trouble is that so many have so quickly grown war-weary. \nSept. 11 was not a failure of "imagination," as it is often lazily said. It was a failure of will. The enemies of civilization that struck American soil five years ago remain in plain sight and on the move. We should remain clear-eyed and fast behind.
CIA's excuses for failure poor\nAyesha Awan\nHow and why did the Bush administration go from a "dead or alive" attitude toward Osama bin Laden's capture to a flaky "well, it's not really that important to us anymore?"\nSeems to be a cover for sheer and utter failure to me.\nPerhaps if there was actually one person in charge of the operation to find bin Laden -- instead of multiple overlapping agencies and their bureaucratic red tape running the deal -- we might have found him. \nPerhaps if Bush, in December 2001, hadn't pulled out the majority of CIA agents and special operations troops who were leading the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for the unfounded war in Iraq, we might have found bin Laden.\nIt doesn't really matter what other accidental "advances" in "freedom and democracy" we've made. \nThe fact of the matter is, the most elite, most heavily funded, highly trained American forces have failed to deliver Osama bin Laden.
