Tomorrow morning when you wake up and grab a cup of coffee and turn on the news channel, pretend it's the morning of 11th of September 2001. Pretend that, of the three planes involved,one had successfully hit and destroyed the White House while the other two each had hit and destroyed seperate wings of the Capitol Building.
It's not too much to imagine. It could have very easily occured.
Now, dammit, you understand what motivates your President!
No, we don't. Not always.