text: Our problem in the so-called War on Terror, it seems to me, is that we're not fantasizing enough. The other side is having fun with their just-crazy-enough-to-work plans and their jihad insanity. Meanwhile our job is reacting to and absorbing the terror. But we're on the same planet they're on. We can climb as high, endure as long, sleep as cold, live as hard. Nowadays our fantasies are played out only in preposterous action films, no more realistic than a video game. But imagine rappelling down the cliff face, swinging into the cave mouth, and somehow coming up with a prize so huge the world would remember your name permanently. The president has said he's not that concerned about bin Ladena ridiculous assertion. I mean, there's deathless glory to be had!
  If I went after bin Laden, I think what I'd like to do first is surprise him. Maybe drop a three-foot dhub on his sleeping bag, for the sake of nostalgia; or else I'd just be waiting by the trail to the men's room behind the cave one morning when he came by. I'd be reading a copy of Modern Romance magazine, and I'd address him in flawless Arabic, because I know he's picky about language. (I don't speak Arabic, so a crash course on the flight over would be required.) I'd ask him a few tough questions, such as whether the fact that killing noncombatants is unavoidable in wars makes it, as a deliberate act, acceptable. I'd finally find out what those blue slippers are he's wearing. Then the drop net, a quick shot with a tranquilizer dart, into the support chopper, and we're out of there.