CIA to bin Laden: "ok, you win"

Fascinating

(...assuming you had any trust in the CIA in this context all along)

That said and lecture read, I'm surprised it took them this long to disband the unit.

(1) kicking the U.S. out of saudi arabia [done]

(2) establishing some sorta caliphate/theocracy encompassing most of the countries in the middle east

First of all, I'm not sure there is much more of a truly common goal beyond that, or less sarcastically, simply weakening western culture and influence. My recollection is that the original bug in Bin Laden's pants was US forces in Saudi Arabia, but obviously we've moved far beyond that. Trying to find a particularly sensible political goal that ties bombings in Bali and attacks on the US is pretty tough. Perhaps establishment of an Islamic government in all majority Islamic countries, including indepedence of subnational Muslim areas in larger non-Muslim states (eg., bits of Philippines, Chechnya?)

Their very long term goal is world domination by Islamist military, economic and cultural power - similar to the domination now enjoyed by the USA and Europe.

Their mid-term goal is to capture power in some key Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Prior to that, they wish to establish practical quasi-governmental control of various 'backwater' Islamic areas, such as Sudan, the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the outlying islands of Indonesia, that are weakly governed or semi-anarchic now.

In pursuit of these goals they seek to create and maintain a logistical network capable of recruiting and training soldiers who are willing to die for al-Q, collecting and directing money and arms, and (very importantly) disseminating some pretty sophisticated propaganda as widely as possible - including "propaganda of the deed" such as the 9/11 attacks and their other "terrorist" actions.

It's really a pretty impressive outfit when you consider what they've accomplished. They seem to be well on track to meeting many of the minor goals that must be preliminary to achieving their major goals. Western efforts at counter-force and counter-propaganda have been pretty dismal by comparison, as measured by the crowing that we do when we kill just one guy like Zarqawi, since we have no better achievments to crow about. This does zero to weaken al-Q. Killing bin Laden, OTOH, would be rather more of a deadly blow to al-Q, in that it strikes directly at their prestige. He's the key guy.

At any rate, its really Al-Zwahiri who seems like the brains of the operation...

Al-Zwahiri may be the effective brain, but he would have to invent another bin Laden in order to leverage his plans as he wishes, and that takes a lot of time.

So, why ain't he dead?

Hah. If they're closing it down because they don't see Al Qaeda as being hierarchical, then the whole thing was a waste in the first place.

I have a feeling Bali was as much to do with Indonesia's rather shaky relationship with Australia, as anything else.