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We live in sobering times, so why are the bestseller lists so punch-drunk? In the wake of the traumas of Sept. 11 and after, publishers have rushed out titles that stake strong ideological positions — particularly when delivered by someone with a modicum of fame — and watched the nonfiction lists lurch into line. How else to explain the runaway success of books such as Michael Moore’s “Stupid White Men” — now nearing a yearlong run on the New York Times list — or Michael Savage’s “Savage Nation”?

Washington, D.C.: You said on last night’s program that al Qaeda undoubtedly had the materials to make a dirty bomb. Tell us what led you to believe this, for example, do you have any intel or evidence? Can you tell us which nuclear species they undoubtedly possess? We have been hearing the basics on dirty […]

On April 8, the day before U.S. Marines toppled Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad, an Algerian gave The Associated Press in Islamabad, Pakistan, a 27-minute tape. He said it came from Osama bin Laden.

The voice on the tape called on Muslims to rise up against Arab regimes that are “agents of America.” The tape called for suicide attacks on U.S. and U.K. targets to “avenge the innocent children” of Iraq.

BLITZER: In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, there was considerable concern that U.S. action could trigger terrorist retaliation. Now there’s a newly surfaced audiotape said to have been recorded by Osama bin Laden. The speaker calls for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests and revolutions against Arab governments with ties to the United States.

It’s not often that history affords one the opportunity to run a grand experiment, but with the present war in Iraq, Bush administration officials are planning to run what may be the greatest historical experiment since the rebuilding of Europe after World War II. That’s because this war is not only about removing a nasty dictator who flouts U.N. resolutions and happens to be sitting on the second-largest oil reserves in the world; it is also about remaking the Middle East in our democratic image. At least that is the hope of the neoconservative thinkers who are the intellectual authors of Bush administration policy in the Middle East.

CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I’m Neal Conan in Washington. Join Ira Flatow on the next “Science Friday” for a look at the lasting environmental effects of oil pollution in the Middle East, plus an update on the smallpox vaccination program. That’s tomorrow on “Talk of the Nation/Science Friday.” Today we’re talking about […]

SOT ZACH ABUZA
I think one place that we have to look next is Bangladesh, which, so far, has remained off most people?s radar screens. It?s a large Muslim country, it?s a very poor country, and there are a lot of militant Islamists there.

SOT COFER BLACK
There is speculation about this, there is concern about this, but I will tell you that we do not have definitive information or intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda is reforming in Bangladesh.

This documentary first aired o the Discovery/Times channel on March 25, 2003
SOT OSAMA BIN LADEN
Targeting the Americans and the Jews by killing them in any corner of the earth is the greatest of obligations and the most excellent way of gaining nearness to Allah.

SOT COFER BLACK
We’re after them from, you know, the north pole to the south pole, there’s no place to go, no place to run Narration: The war on terror has scattered their ranks?

Their tones may differ, but in each of three documentaries about the roots of 9/11 and its aftermath in the Muslim world there is one truly terrifying moment.

In “Al Qaeda 2.0,” which will be shown tonight with “Terror’s Children” on the new Discovery Times Channel and includes dramatic scenes of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists being hunted down in the caves of Afghanistan and the slums of Karachi, Pakistan, Dr. Saad al-Fagih, a leading Saudi dissident, says, “There is an impending attack coming, and this attack is immense, huge and either as big or even bigger than Sept. 11, and this attack is full of surprise.”

In becoming a television network tonight, The New York Times isn’t delivering all the news that’s fit to air.

Rather, it’s launching the Discovery Times Channel with two striking documentaries. At 8, the excellent Al Qaeda 2.0 examines the terrorist group’s move to the Internet. At 9, the wrenching Terror’s Children profiles Afghan youngsters who struggle in Pakistan refugee camps.