dr. thomas ninch, who is a distinguished research fellow, at the institute for national strategic studies at the national defense university. and retired from the military after 26 years or so. tom? >> great. thank you very much. thank you for having me here today. as yoena mentioned, i'm a research fellow over at the national defense university so let me offer this opening comment. the comments i'm about to make to you here neither represent the position of my host institution, national defense university or the department of defense, but are my own individual conclusions. again, delighted to be here today. as we near the one-year anniversary of the operation that eliminated bin laden, i'm here to contend perhaps not as starkly as mary has offered about diverging with her position, but i'm out here to contend to you that rather than overestimating the death of bin laden, we still under estimate, and underappreciate the degree to which bin laden's death has really clarified and made more understandable what -- here's what i do disagree with mary, what is not a global insurgency, but rathe