[aristeides]

Why would al Qaeda do us the favor of giving us warnings?

[windchime]

Because fear is their most effective weapon. The warning will affect more people for a longer period of time than an actual attack. (they can also monitor our preparation for such an attack) I'm going to do what I did after September 11........get a flight to New York, go to the Empire State Building, a play and other highly populated target areas!! If they keep us scared, they win!

[MissAmericanPie]

I think they warn before an attack, with the Cole, the Embassy bombings, etc, they sent a warning about a month before hand.

A month from now with be Independence Day, Fourth of July.

[powderhorn]

Why would al Qaeda do us the favor of giving us warnings?

1. To make us feel less secure. It's the skinny kid on the playground who says to the big kid, "hey, I know karate so you'd better back off."

2. To rally support from muslims who are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see who the winner is likely to be.

3. To disrupt our economy. The stock market tends to get weak knees with predictions of bad news.

4. To make us divert our resources from offenseive actions to defensive actions.

I think that if they had a real plan to do some serious damage they'd hold off on bragging until the deed was done.