I don't want to start a rumour. I simply thought this might be interesting. Remember that news is not important but how it is perceived: http://www.drudgereport.com/flash7.htm
Babak, Great catch. I read Drudge daily especially now. I saw the headline on the rumsfeld rant but didn't read the details. The Saudi angle is scary. Bottom line is,and most people won't admit it, but with few exceptions, the whole middle east needs to be turned upside down in order to win this war. Afghan, Iraq, Syria are the easy targets, Iran, Saudi, UAE are the toughies. We can't get into to much of this here but imo we will have to occupy land in the middle east to finish this 10 year war. Might as well secure our oil while we're at it.
Eugene: You've got that right. That's a bad region politically, should strike a deal with Russian and Canada for oil, section the whole region off, hit the button, or get out. IMHO.
Check out Yahoo.Com. 4000 Taliban rebels have defected to the northern alliance. More defections are expected. The Taliban offered to turn over Osama bin Laden today. Bush refused. My point is that Osama isn't a "ghost" and he isn't kesyer soze. Also, America isn't invincible. The truth is somewhere in the middle. I think the markets realize this.
I hope you don't think that when we kill Osama this will all be over ?!! I'm very optimistic that we will , to a major degree, destroy terrorism, but it will take a lot longer than defeating the taliban. Iraq's and Iran's governments must be overthrown to even begin to put and end to this mess. We are probably in a war that will be tougher to win than WWII, just be prepared mentally for a long fight.