Crises in Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, the Korean peninsula and ongoing traumas in our dealings with friends in places like Tokyo and London as well as past adversaries in capitals like Moscow and Beijing, are giving rise to a new conventional wisdom that the U.S. government is in the hands of incompetents.
Of particular interest is any information that would connect bin Laden directly to affiliates such as al Qaeda's Yemeni branch, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or militant groups in Africa such as Somalia-based al Shabaab.
While the trees historically grew from the southern Arabian peninsula to the Horn of Africa, they are now found mostly in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and India.