I keep hearing that question being asked.

Bin Laden is still at large. Al-Qaeda have upped shop and are still in business over the border. Afghanistan is slipping back into pre-Taleban civil war. The Israelis are more aggressive than ever.

But surely that's not the point? Whoever or why ever Afghanistan became the playground of the international Islamic terrorist isn't the point. It just was. 10,000 men passed through the dozens of terrorist training camps in the Afghan mountains and deserts. That's 2000 trained potential terrorists a year.

Now the camps are all gone, they are no more. Al-Quaeda is on the run. And Bin Laden....well, if he was alive, don't you think he would have something to say on this very day (via Al-Jazeera, of course)?

Yes, we are a lot further forward a year on.

Bin Laden is most likely dead, or seriously ill.

The US and Britain have woken up to the menace and are dealing with it.

The rest of the world is whining, as we would expect.

Once again we are proud to be British and glad that fortune did not allow us to be born abroad.

PS And the fuel protest is thankfully over.

PPS My enthusiasm for all things Jewish is waning. What is up with those Israelis?

I think there is a solution to the Israeli problem over the horizon. Not so sure about fuel protestors though. They just never give up.