(And this kind of chaos need not be a decapitation attack on the Seat of Government. A disabling attack on agriculture--such as contaminating the meat supply with hoof and mouth or mad cow--or a psychological attack on consumerism--such as 5 suicide bombers hitting crowded shopping malls--would have a big effect. The destruction of a few dams would have similar effects, but, fortunately for us, they are apparently well-defended, i.e., they are _not_ soft targets.)
Well, I am not convinced. About the ever-present dangers of innumerable terrorists, that is.
I mean, where the hell are they all? It's a giant country, with ungaurded borders extending for thousands of miles. It seems to me if there really were some vast army of terrorists waiting to kill us all out there, we should be seeing something happen about every other day. But as it the only terrorist attack (from non-US citizens, that is), was on 9/11/01. Were there ANY others? (Though I still think that plane that went down over Far Rockaway was obviously sabotaged.)
Israel, of course, is a different story. But as Variola posted a few days ago, those suicide bombers grow up under very different circumstances. We don't have such circumstances here...yet. Those suicide bombers could see the possibility of direct and obvious pressure on local abusive forces that they had likely grown up witnessing first-hand.
So what I am tempted to believe is that on September 11th, the vast majority of adult, mission-oriented Suicide bombers likely died in action. After that, it was easy to scare the population into accepting check points, lockdowns, the general loss of freedom, and 1.5 hour bus drives into lower Manhattan (such as I experienced this morning).
You know what? There are no terrorists.
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