A Speculation on the Goals and Strategy of the Foe

wmtingley writes: "[1:] Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks as part of an escalating terror campaign against the United States. They expected a capitulation by us, not the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq."

My comment:

Interesting. I had been assuming that Al Qaeda's main purpose was to shore up support among their base, to awe and impress their Sunni allies and to awe and terrify their Shiite enemies. It was a symbolic, a religious act, not a military one: it was a holocaust of human victims t...