Practicalmadness

The Guardian Online is running a profile of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the third-in-command of al-Qaida who was arrested in Pakistan this weekend, and will soon be extradited to the U.S. for his apparently very, very major role in planning September 11.

The story paints Mohammed as a playboy who enjoys womanizing, drinking, scuba diving -- not a religious fanatic like the other al-Qaida principals, but equal to them in his hatred of America and its allies.

The arrest is expected to be a major blow to al-Qaeda's operations; much of the terrorist cartel's ability to coordinate and execute massively ambitious operations like the 9/11 attacks is attributed to Mohammed's grand vision for blowing up the big stuff, and a talent for that kind of global strategy.

So sleep a little bit safer now knowing that the U.S. has captured one individual in an executive position, and now thinks that the alleged thousands of al-Qaeda worker bees who actually pull the trigger and set the explosives have just stopped dead in their tracks because their fearless leader is in a Pakistani jail...