by Tom Ashbrook.

“America, you lost,” shouted Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in the courtroom yesterday, after a jury of nine men and three women rejected the death penalty for Moussaoui and sent him to life in prison.

To many, the verdict looked more like a victory. American justice observed. A bitter, angry man treated with equanimity. President Bush praised the quality of mercy in the jury’s decision. But in the larger conflict with Al Qaeda, the battle in which Zacarias Moussaoui was a small fish and 9.11 was a earthquake, the state of play is less clear, and less public.

This hour On Point: the Moussaoui sentence, and the real state of battle with Al Qaeda.

Guests:

Brian Bennett, Correspondent for Time Magazine

Josh Meyer, Terrorism Reporter for the Los Angeles Times

Paul Wilkinson, Professor of International Relations at the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews University

Ambassador James Dobbins, Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corporation, Former Special Envoy for Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration’s first special envoy for Afghanistan.