Good points, Mary Anne. It occurs to me that I haven't seen much attention given to analyzing the message sent by the September 11th attacks. They weren't random, and each one was a part of the message, and understanding the message can help us judge the future risk.

The attacks were targeted at the tripod of American power. The World Trade Center symbolized economic and financial power. The Pentagon, obviously military power. The presumed target of Flight 93, the White House, symbolized political power.

We characterize the attacks, particularly the attack on the WTC, as targeting innocent civilians. But if you consider the message, Al Qaeda might have looked at workers in those three targets as combatants in those three "agencies" of American power. Those weren't just any civilians, those were civilians toiling in the belly of the beast(s).

The attacks weren't random, and they were focused on three ideological targets. If we presume that future attacks will communicate similar messages, then it doesn't sound like we have much to fear from random attacks. The odds of being a victim aren't equal no matter where you are. Attacking a crowd of New Year's revelers would be a different message than the one sent 9/11, and so perhaps the odds were pretty small all along.

This theory goes against the official government line (so many of my theories do!). Assuming I've interpreted the message correctly (and it's a simple message), the government's spin of random terror directed at innocent civilians could be designed to avoid division, to deter the majority not targeted from tossing the targets to the wolves. Saying that all Americans are targets also diffuses responsibility and defocuses the message--it's no longer about opposition to specific behaviors on the part of US businesses overseas, US military actions, and a 900 pound political gorilla--actions and policies that could theoretically be changed. Now it's about a formless, senseless hatred of an entire people, and there's nothing anybody can do about that. We don't have to change.

So maybe the answer to Tom's original puzzler is that there were no attacks not because the terrorists didn't think they could pull them off. Perhaps there were no attacks because the US government is controlling the message so well that terrorists don't think they could get their message across with an attack, and are smart enough to not buttress the government's story by trying.

The pen is mightier than the sword?

--Robert