Considering the firepower available to a fire team, squad, platoon to company sized unit which is man portable and even more sustained by the self contained load of a vehicle trunk or pickup trunk,...it's not unreasonable for the law of averages to allow such a massacre of 100 or so inncent people every 3 months to year and a slaughter of some 1000 or so in our society every 1-10 years. When I say a 'law of averages' it is simply based upon a convolution of factors such as common technology available within a society, the possibility of 1-10 possible murderers in every million of population, and the total flux of transient population.
To some extent, the only factor inhibiting such a calamity is similar to comparing Lebanon of 30 yrs ago to the Lebanon of today.
It seems as though if a certain threshold is broken within modern society, this flood of terror might become unleashed. In our case, not from necessarily any one particular grouping of ideologies.
Unlike Lebanon, the US has fashioned an acceptance of a multitude of diverse extreme groups, any of which might engage in such a lunatic campaign simply by some queer quirk in events and their personality.
Within the purview of Non-governmental organizations and other groups with isolated agendas, many a refuge exists for a handful to several hundred extremists who could feed such a frenzy.
I'm not suggesting some paranoid chaotic obsession, but rather observing what social factors seem to exist in unstable societies versus those elements seemingly stable within our own. Without sincere belief in God, I see nothing really preventing such a chaotic situation other than perhaps the status quo.
If that should change too frequently, and I suspect this is the tide bin Laden is hoping to unleash, except around the globe focused on militant Muslim belief, could surge irreversibly.
If 10 out of a hundred NGOs fostered 5-10 suicidal lunatics to garner political attention by commiting terror as an act to oppose 'establishment', does anybody sincerely believe Jesse Jackson would have the ethics to oppose those acts, ....or would he convolute the terror and media attention to serve a personal agenda?
Would the 2 Congressmen who ventured to Iraq and voice their support of Iraq over Bush have the intestinal fortitude to state unequivacably their disdain for terror, or would they merge their limelight into acquiescent search for militant support?
How many socialist democrats would simply unite in a search for peace ....at the expense of all Constitutional freedom....provided only they could rule?
If this occured,....would there be enough patriots of the Constitution left with level heads to discern, act in defense where necessary, and attack when wise for our system to win?
I suspect things aren't this bad,...but it wouldn't surprise me if a handful of idiots who think the Clintons were their cup of tea, wouldn't be stupid enough to promote and engage in such planning and action.