This reminds me of the two visits my family made to East Germany when we lived in West Germany (it was in the last two years before the fall of the wall). What was quite apparent was that East Germany is the only place in the world where West Germans respected speed limits, what respected, drove 10 km/h under! Including the ridiculous 30-km/h-speed-reductions on highways created just to catch anyone who breaks the rules.

Of course, coming from  another communist dictature, we didn't feel scared - yet, we noticed that this is a stricter dictature in many minute ways, not just due to the hyper-strict border controls. For example, when beside the Wartburg above Eisenach, we ate at a restaurant at midday, the waiter looked at us with  hostility, murmured something about a stolen midday break (in a restaurant!), then served a steak like a shoe tread...

Which in a tragic parallelism opens up the question, where would have a successful assassination left Germany in 1944?

Great point.

Juan Cole... pointed out... AQ, lacks the intellectuals and their manpower.

I think I'll disagree with Cole on this. Both the London bombers and terrorists in Iraq show that unlike the Afghanistan War generation, the new breed contains quite some educated people. From which I draw the conclusion that a new attack within the USA is only a question of time.

What is the difference between right wing and left wing terrorism.

I think the focus on targets in positions with authority by left-wing terrorism and the focus on targets from members of a community (ethnic/religious/etc.) by the right-wing version. Of course, both do the other thing too, as left-wing plane hijackers and right-wing union leader, civil rights movement leader assassins prove.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}