I spent 23 years in the CIA. I drafted or was involved in many of the government's most senior assessments of the threats facing our country. I have devoted years to understanding and combating the jihadist threat. 

We rightly honor as heroes those who serve our nation and offer their lives to protect ours. We all 'support the troops.' Yet the first step for any commander is to understand the enemy.

The next commander in chief should base his counterterrorism policies on the following realities: 

We do not face a global jihadist 'movement' but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost allof which long predate the existence of al-Qaeda. 

Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears. Al-Qaeda is the only global jihadist organization and is the only Islamic terrorist organization that targets the U.S. homeland. Al-Qaeda remains capable of striking here and is plotting from its redoubt in Waziristan, Pakistan.  

The organization, however, has only a handful of individuals capable of planning, organizing and leading a terrorist operation. Al-Qaeda threatens to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but its capabilities are far inferior to its desires. Even the 'loose nuke' threat, whose consequences would be horrific, has a very low probability. For the medium term, any attack is overwhelmingly likely to consist of creative uses of conventional explosives. 

Overstating Our Fears 

meanwhile, at the Obama Christian killing machine.. Obama says bin Laden must not be a martyr ….

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday he would bring Osama bin Laden to justice in a way that wouldn't allow the terrorist mastermind to become a martyr, but he may be killed if the U.S. government finds him. 

'First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden's head,' the Illinois senator said at a news conference. 'And if I'm president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive.' 

But we will...

and recently he said he will kill the man after due process of law, I believe ... which is nothing new in the US camp since Clinton would kill Bin Laden with her bare hands and John McCain would kill Osama as well without asking too many questions....

But back to the top story...