[Sandwich]

...almost 10 years ago, that is. 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3206835,00.html

[Turnsky]

ah, if only. unfortunately for a lot of people, foresight is -not- 20/20 like hindsight can be. 

[Scuddie]

...so?

[MatthewPapa]

actually, there is a good chance bin laden is dead or seriously ill right now. we havent seen a tape or heard anything from him in around 3 years.

[achtung]

actually, there is a good chance bin laden is dead or seriously ill right now. we havent seen a tape or heard anything from him in around 3 years.

We've got a few cassette tapes.

[aldo_14]

actually, there is a good chance bin laden is dead or seriously ill right now. we havent seen a tape or heard anything from him in around 3 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4629858.stm

Are you not paying much attention to this or something?

[NGTM-1R]

While we're on the might-have-beens, it would have been nice if someone hadn't blabbed about the NSA picking up his satellite phone conversations several years back.

[BlackDove]

So good that you guys (USA, Israel, etc.) trained him well enough to escape in the meantime during these last ten years.

[WMCoolmon]

OTOH I'm inclined to say that some kind of large-scale death toll on the scale of September 11 was only a matter of time, whether every person who was supposed to be assassinated in the last 10 years got assassinated or not.

[Nix]

I remember hearing that Clinton had him in custody at one point, for what exactly, I cannot recall, but I recall the quote that came from Clinton's mouth was that he had no legal reason to hold him, so he gave him up to the saudis.  Not that it would have changed much in the course of history, of course, but who knows what might have happened.