Re: "Protesters to blame if U.S. is attacked again," Feb. 11 letter.

The author should get his facts straight about international terrorism before he starts playing the blame game. Anti-war protesters were not active in 1998 when a hardly unknown Osama bin Laden orchestrated the embassy bombings. Protesters weren't active in 2001 when al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington, D.C. It is interesting that DeBow believes Clinton would have better luck than Bush at sending "troops to capture him and his associates." While it may be true that Clinton's efforts were pretty weak, we should also see them as pretty much in line with past presidents' responses to nebulous terrorist threats, such as Reagan's inability to respond to either the Beirut embassy and marine barracks bombings in spring and fall 1983. Moreover, bin Laden had been known for years and the U.S. government had funded his early efforts, except those actions weren't considered terrorism by the United States. If the author wishes to look at the origins of bin Laden, he should start much closer to the source: the early 1980s and bin Laden's involvement in the U.S.-backed Mujahadeen.