[tet68]

Not until a minimum of 100,000 Americans are killed in a single terrorist incident.

We know that day is coming as surely as we knew that something like 911 was coming. The how and the when are
unknown but the will and intent of the terrorists has only
been whetted and honed by their past success.
Perhaps THEN a sleeping giant will declare,"ENOUGH!".

[JSteff]

"Perhaps THEN a sleeping giant will declare,"ENOUGH!"."

That has sort of been our history. When there are world "situations" we try to get as minimally involved as possible. Our leaders are worried about the electorate, the electorate is worried about every day life, so we dance around the situation.

We try to support our allies with supplies... lend-lease our way through the situation....send advisors, money, and material, poerofrm a plice action. Then somebody does something stupid - gives us a Lusitania, a Pearl Harbor, Boston Massacre, a Fort Sumter to wake us up. Then they have had it, and regret it.

As horrible and sad as WTC was, it was not enough. Our world view is larger, our definition of outrageous is larger. Just think of the block buster movies of the last 10 years to see how large a disaster is needed to amaze.

As shocked as we were, I still don't think it was enough. Afghanistan and Iraq, as involved as they were, were not to the scale of amaze yet. The TV coverage alone left many with an "oh, another moon landing" type attitude, "Oh another one of those things.."

Sadly you are exactly right, it will take something on the magnitude of 100,000 casualties to REALLY wake us up. Then they are going to find out, as others before, it was really stupid to push us that far. I really hope that day doesn't come like that... but neither did the people at the time of our other awakenings.