Most Muslims don't want to live in some Taliban-style utopia, which is what bin Laden and allied groups are offering.

At one point people in al Qaeda were actually drawing monthly paychecks when they were based in Sudan.

Most Muslims don't want to live in some Taliban-style utopia, which is what bin Laden and allied groups are offering.

There's some pretty good academic research that suggest that what Americans don't like is losing.

And in the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound surrounded by his wives and children and far from the front lines of his holy war.

Why should Americans care about the Nazi back story in World War II? If you don't have the Nazi back story in World War II, World War II is simply not comprehensible.

If you don't understand what al Qaeda was trying to do on 9/11, if you don't have a sense of who Osama bin Laden is as a person, if you don't have a sense of what al Qaeda, the organization, was on 9/11, 9/11 appears to be more or less inexplicable.