Quote Originally Posted by Schmedlap View Post
David,

In my opinion, the silver lining on this issue is that I think terrorist strikes in this country are not intended to really instill fear among Americans. I really think they are intended to provoke us. I think it would be far more frightening if terrorists started hitting "soft targets" such as shopping malls, gridlocked interstates (such as in the hypo I cited), or a high school sporting events. Instead, they want to attack symbols of American financial, economic, military, or cultural significance in order to draw us into a fight on their turf.

Could it be that the "flypaper theory" is actually playing out (albeit not for the reasons often cited)? Rather than us being proactive and "fighting them over there so that we don't fight them here," the terrorist motivation might be precisely to fight us over there because they don't want to fight us here. Hitting soft targets might just result in greater inward-looking domestic security measures. But hitting major symbolic targets, for some reason, seems to stir us to anger more easily. If their intent is to "fight us over there" then they seem to have chosen their targets wisely and maybe this means that we don't have to fear attacks on soft targets.
Perhaps. I also think a scenario as outlined above (multiple sustained attacks over time) would cause this country to lose its mind. Take a look at what Malvo caused in NOVA.

I used to think this movie was over the top, but honestly I think we would turn to a solution like the one in "The Seige" faster than we would like to admit. Especially with the partisan talk show climate out there.