HOW DOES THIS SERVE THEM?
HOW DOES THIS SERVE THEM?
You, yourself, keep skirting the question, IMHO.
If we change our way of life, in essence change who we (as a nation) are in reaction to this or other terrorist attacks or acts of war, then WHO WE ARE will cease to exist. WHO WE ARE will, in essence, have been murdered along with all of the other victims of this tragedy.
Were I a master terrorist, or someone interested in destroying America, I would aim at the most important thing that America has - its ideals, and the unity and devotion that such ideals have generated over the last 225 years. Cause America to turn from an open society with liberty for all into a closed, afraid society with security checkpoints everywhere, with no privacy (in the name of security, of course), with no privately-held firearms (too dangerous, don't you know), etc. etc., do these things and you've destroyed this country. We will cease to be any different from anyone else. We will, due to our great size become what the Romans became - a dictatorial empire. Not overnight, but it will happen.
The very reason for this attack was to hurt us as much as possible. It was designed to use the massive carnage and destruction to make people afraid, to give opportunistic politicians and bureaucrats the excuse to impose more and more restrictions on our existing liberties. The carnage was a secondary goal, a symbol of their success. The primary goal, the substance of their success will appear (or, hopefully, not appear) in the weeks and months ahead, when this country decides who we really are.
Read Sun Tzu - the way to destroy a powerful enemy is not to take him where he is strongest, but to hit him at a weak and unexpected point. The US is very strong, materially - second to none. We can take a physical strike like Pearl Harbor or the WTC and recover. Today we're a nation of 280 million, with the best technology in the world and no serious rival to our power. Even the loss of several cities and millions of people would, terrible as such a loss is to contemplate, be something that we could recover from (witness the Soviets, who lost 20+ million in 4 years and then rose to challenge our power for 50 years). However, we are ill-equipped to deal with a threat to our liberties from within. We already have politicians and bureaucrats who gleefully seize upon every "threat to security" to whittle away at our liberties (such as school shootings that kill less than 1/1000 the number of the WTC incident); what could be better (from this sick perspective) than to have a massively deadly event that creates fear/terror everywhere?
THIS is the danger. Not a few petty inconveniences such as waiting to pass through an X-ray machine. Any prudent person will put up with a few inconveniences to save his life. But the cumulative effect of hundreds of such "minor, small, practical steps" is to dangerously erode our liberty.
Benjamin Franklin stated that anyone willing to give up their liberty in exchange for the promise of security deserves neither. He was smarter than you or I, and I believe that his words of wisdom should be heeded.