The return of the Taliban and Al Qaeda has been blogged here today, notably by NewDealer, who launches from Frank Rich's NYT column; there's also a Times editorial entitled "Al Qaeda Resurgent".
Rich's story references an interview by the ever-vigilant Keith Olbermann, of Richard Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's 'Bin Laden Unit'; and several quotes from this are given and discussed in today's Kos threads. What I haven't seen here, and forgive me if I missed it, is a link to the video, which is chilling in the extreme.
This is really worth a look. Scheuer may be an alarmist, and God knows one hopes he is wrong; but he forsees a nuclear attack by Al Qaeda on American soil. Whether he is being overly dire, and trying to score a sensational publicity coup, I am obviously no judge; but what is clear, probably to every sentient progressive in the country, is that the entire Iraq project (including its projected Iranian follow-on) has been a diversion in the true battle against fundamentalist terrorism (and I will leave the reader to decide which of the three great Mosaic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- is ultimately most at fault for the spread of terror as a tactic in today's world.