[JesseK]

I think that's why it's in Chit-Chat Mike. Chit-Chat isn't on the Portal by default (I think), so the majority of people wouldn't even see it.

There are a great many details about his time line of events after he finished college if you poke around the internet. I think the best analogy I've read is that he was the "franchise owner" of Al-Qaeda, and that the organization itself will be difficult to demolish 100%. The organization was more about the Soviet-Afghan war, at least in the beginning.

If you ever read the books on what happened in Afghanistan during the 70's with the Soviets, you may gain some insight into the 'why he was the way he was'. Shantaram is an interesting book about a guy who escaped prison and went to India. On page 700-something he goes into Afghanistan with some group and gets caught in the middle of the Soviet-Afghan war. The imagery the author puts out at that point is pretty lasting, especially about the Afghan who has such pure hatred for the Soviets because he lost everything but his life. Living life the way they did during that war is a totally different paradigm than what I'd ever conceived before I read that book.

Add in some misguided religious ideologies from a college and it's not difficult to see how bin Ladin slipped into a relentless hatred of foreigners. As for how to prevent it -- well, people have willpower and unalienable rights until crimes are committed. Thus the best way is to detect and prevent the crimes; unfortunately before the U.S. put more resources towards that specific goal, it simply wasn't possible to detect a whole lot.

Moving forward, rather than living in fear I think it's best that we remind ourselves that we (the U.S. civilian) are part of the U.S.'s line of defenses in combating terrorism.