Ever since 9/11 I've thought that Al Qaeda might
 

be interested in sparking wildfires throughout the country. If you think about it, it's probably the very easiest form of terrorism to perpetrate and ends up being incredibly expensive to us. They could wreak serious havoc with just a few operatives touching off fires on the right days in the right places. They could have the entire West ablaze a couple of times each summer and never really get caught. I wonder if they don't see what's going on in SoCal right now and think "hey, we could do that."

Terrorists are completely impotent. They couldn't harm us even if they wanted to, and they don't. You're just spouting nutjob right-wing Fox News propaganda to scare us into voting Republican. Go back to listening to Rush, Bush's-crotch sniffer.

[/MikeWaters]

Agreed, but it doesn't fit their profile. They want to do "big bang" things that are horriffic and easily identifiable as terrorism. There is a plethora of things like this they could do that would cause serious harm to our economy and my extension our country. But they don't meet the criteria above.

Another example... a few well-place potholes on major Interstates would create major havoc in the delivery of goods.

I've had the same thought SB. If I were a terrorist, I wouldn't focus on the big cities. I'd start a group of wildfires throughout the West, forcing the states to spend tons of money combatting the blazes. Around that time I would set off car bombs to take out freeways througout the midwest. This would halt interstate trucking, temporarily knocking out food and supply transport. There would be nationwide chaos.

I can think of a ton of ways the terrorists could hit us that would cause at least as much fear as 9/11 but that wouldn't take even a fraction of the planning. It seems that these terrorists are either really stupid, completely impotent, or that they just wanted to do something really complicated and dramatic to make a statement, without desire to further terrorize. Either way, I think it's ridiculous how much of our public dialogue is devoted to this relatively minor issue.

But you are rational and are approaching it from the standpoint of "how do I do the most damage to their economy / country?" They are looking for big bang thing that cause terror. Real damage is secondary. So they will always be looking to the 9/11ish stuff.

Ouch! You need to learn to contain that razor-sharp wit. You're going to cut yourself.