"And likewise, with them -- they can fail 999 times. And if they succeed *once* -- they've won exactly what they wanted. There's you "math" for the equation...." 
It's poor math. If caught with even 1 nuke, Al Qaeda would face vast new challenges. Losing 999 would doom them; actually, they'd be doomed far earlier, and are probably already doomed due to our global successes in the war on terror.
Al Qaeda's idea of high tech is a box cutter on someone else's jumbo jet. Clean labs and nuclear construction/maintenance are vastly out of their hands.
Nor is North Korea going to risk 999 nukes to get one to a U.S. port. Nor will Iran. Iran is building long range missiles because they want a higher hit ratio than that; they already know that we are detecting and stopping anything even close to a nuclear component.
The 4 Libyan ships that we caught with centrifuges, for instance, were detected from the **traces** of radiation left from their prior legitimate enrichment usage.
Even washed, they weren't clean enough nor shielded by the ships' hulls enough to escape our detection.
You said -- "It's poor math. If caught with even 1 nuke, Al Qaeda would face vast new challenges. Losing 999 would doom them; actually, they'd be doomed far earlier, and are probably already doomed due to our global successes in the war on terror."
It's not bad math. What that math shows is that they can fail a lot and still win. With us, it means we have to be 100% -- or we lose. Now by lose -- that means that some terrorism gets through (or an item gets through or whatever they are trying to do).
It doesn't have to be nukes for 999 times. The formula indicates they can fail a lot and still win. With us we have to win 100% of the time. That's what I call a *bad equation* for us. And I imagine that it's this type of equation which tells our officials (which they've said) that we *will have a successful terrorist attack* on our soil -- again. They say that. The "math" is why they say that.
As far as nukes -- I'm sorry -- I do not believe that we are *infallible*. Not at all. I believe we *will fail*. And from the looks of it we don't even have the game plan right. We are not defending the borders. We have people that get into this country through normal channels that we're not stopping. This was on the news just recently (in the last few weeks).
So, you're asking me to believe in the infallibility of the government to succeed on those 1,000 times and not fail just once. Nope -- I can't believe it. Anyone else who knows our government (and just "people" in general) won't believe it either.
And once again -- that's why we have to eliminate Islam as a viable religion in the world and get rid of the *source* of the terrorism. Fighting simply "terrorism" is just as ridiculous as fighting "guns" to combat "crime". We need to fight the *source* of the problem -- which is Islam.
Regards,
Star Traveler
P.S. -- And those other examples of what we have done -- all you can say is "Thank God for that!" But, I don't believe we'll stop it all. And that's the problem. It *is going to come* -- sooner or later. Get ready for it.