Warning: Do Not Read. Well, You Were Warned.

The new Osama Bin Laden tape has me again wondering what he is thinking (see "It's Too Late, Baby"). We need to understand this terrorist, his motivations, and how he thinks in order to better protect ourselves from his actions. What does he mean what he blames our leaders for allowing 50,000 people to be in the buildings his organization attacked? What did he expect would happen when he attacked those buildings?

We need to understand our enemy and what drives our enemy to do what they do. Consider that the Defense Department now estimates that 100,000 people have died during our occupation of Iraq. Put that on top of the over 200,000 people the Defense Department estimates died during Desert Storm. Revenge and continuing the cycle of violence is very likely a strong motivator in those that are attacking our troops.

The fact that Osama Bin Laden was able to make this tape should be a warning to the American public that our current Administration has failed to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden. Yet, the political pundits are claiming that this tape reinforces the Bush campaign objective of making terrorism the key issue and this may help Bush in the polls. Let's see: we reward President Bush for his failure? Something is wrong with this picture.