Often it is important to listen to what people aren't saying.

The image we have of bin Laden in his final years in Abbottabad is of an aging man with a graying beard watching old footage of himself; just another suburban dad flipping though the channels with his remote.

The terrorists who have succeeded in carrying out spectacular attacks against Western targets in the past have been college-educated, technically proficient men who are capable of manufacturing and deploying chemical, radiological, and biological weapons. Al Qaeda attracts the kind of highly educated men who one day might be able to pull off such an attack.

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

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

Bin Laden's death is just a punctuation point on a set of problems they've had for a long time. I think the prognosis for al-Qaida and groups like it is really bad, and that's a good thing.

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