Down, but not out.

Al Qaeda is on the run in many places.  We, and the Iraqi people, have almost cleared them out of Iraq.  Not quite, but getting close.  They've been chased all the way back to Yemen, where one of their most recent successes was a sophisticated truck bomb set off at the US embassy.

I said "one of their most recent successes."  The Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, was hit yesterday with another sophisticated truck bomb attack.  The hotel, according to some sources, was a secondary target, hit only after the terrorists were prevented from reaching Parliament, which was meeting at the time, or the Prime Minister's office, where the new President was having dinner with several officials.

Pakistan blames al Qaeda and the Taliban for the attacks.  

Al Qaeda may be down in the Middle East, but is not, and will not be, out until the moderate Muslims stand up and say "enough," as they have begun to do in Iraq.  Jihadi terrorist organizations will not go away until the regimes that support them, such as Iran's and Syria's governments, are cut off, isolated, and perhaps replaced.

Though I have to say that it's ironic that the attempts upon Pakistan's government and attack on Pakistan's people came after Pakistan's vow to fire upon American forces that cross the border to take out these jihadist radicals in surgical strikes.   Just hours before, the new president of Pakistan had addressed Parliament, saying that Pakistan would not allow terrorist organizations to shelter in Pakistani territory--but that neither would they allow "foreign powers" to "violate Pakistan's sovereignty," even in pursuit of the same terrorists as they flee over the border from scenes of attack in Afghanistan.

I wonder if this attack will change Pakistan's government's collective mind about US troops pursuing terrorists, or committing surgical strikes.  It seems to me that, until our troops were threatened, we were working just as hard to keep Pakistan's government and civilians safe as we were those of Afghanistan.