ON GUARD – AT 8:24 A.M. ET:  There's a tendency to think that large cities are Al Qaeda's only targets in the United States.  Material gleaned from the bin Laden raid reject that notion.  From AP:

Deep in hiding, his terror organization becoming battered and fragmented, Osama bin Laden kept pressing followers to find new ways to hit the U.S., officials say, citing his private journal and other documents recovered in last week's raid.

Strike smaller cities, bin Laden suggested. Target trains as well as planes. Above all, kill as many Americans as possible in a single attack.

Though he was out of the public eye and al-Qaida seemed to be weakening, bin Laden never yielded control of his worldwide organization, U.S. officials said Wednesday. His personal, handwritten journal and his massive collection of computer files reveal his hand at work in every recent major al-Qaida threat, including plots in Europe last year that had travelers and embassies on high alert, two officials said.

They described the intelligence only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about what was found in bin Laden's hideout. Analysts are continuing to review the documents.

The information shatters the government's conventional thinking about bin Laden, who had been regarded for years as mostly an inspirational figurehead whose years in hiding made him too marginalized to maintain operational control of the organization he founded.

Conventional thinking, like loose lips, sinks ships.  It is absurd to think that Al Qaeda and its followers have gone into remission, just as it's absurd to think they don't look at new types of targets all the time.  And please note, up to now the Islamic extremists have only been able to use conventional weapons.  There will simply be a point where they acquire the skills to use WMD of some kind, even a simple biological weapon.

There are drumbeats on the left suggesting that the war on terror is over.  It is not over because it is part of what President Kennedy correctly termed "the twilight struggle."  We had the patience to serve out the Cold War.  The sixties generation never had the patience for anything.  But we will depend on a new generation of Americans, just rising, to see us through.  Based on some early signs, like student support for ROTC on elite campuses, we have some reason for guarded optimism.

May 12,  2011