I've been reading the fascinating
Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer.
....my thesis is that the threat Osama bin Laden poses lies in the coherence and consistency of his ideas, their precise articulation, and the acts of war he takes to implement them.
Sheuer writes,
"I write this book, then, with a pressing certainty that Al Qaeda will attack the continental United States again, that its next strike will be more damaging than that of 11 September 2001, and could include use of weapons of mass destruction."
If Scheuer is right, what could bin Laden do that would be more damaging than 9/11? Clearly, he would have to attack in multiple locations to kill more than 3,000 people, and simultaneous strikes at multiple locations is an Al Qaeda signature anyway.
I was thinking about this as I watched Jon Stewart's postelection
Daily Show clip. One of the bits is an "analysis" of what happened by Stephen Colbert who makes fun of Red Staters for their fear of terrorism, pointing out that the Red States have such obvious Al Qaeda targets as "
Nebraska's CarHenge and
South Dakota's Corn Palace." Being a ex-pat Red Stater myself, it occurred to me that there
are some rather obvious targets in the Red States. They're called
MegaChurches. There was one (among several) one in my hometown we called
"First National Baptist." These MegaChurches claim average attendances in the thousands.
As America prepares to raze the
City of Mosques, I'll quote one more passage from
Imperial Hubris:
Parenthetically, Muslims' passionate love and reverence for God and His prophet help explain the great importance they attach to negative remarks made by U.S. Protestant clerics about Islam and the Prophet, especially by clerics publicly associated to serving administrations. Clerical comments most U.S. citizens disregard are taken as threatening by Muslims because their societal frame of reference is one in which there is no separation of church and state. Thus, words of little consequence in U.S. politics and society are heard and remembered in the Islamic world as threats and blasphemy, earning America increased Muslim hatred. When Pat Robertson says, "Adolph Hitler is bad, but what the Muslims do to Jews is worse"; the Reverend Jerry Falwell refers to the Prophet as a "terrorist"; Jimmy Swaggart prays that "God blesses those who bless Israel and damns those who damn it"; and the Reverend Franklin Graham calls Islam a"wicked religion" and says Christianity and Islam are "different as lightness and darkness,"; Muslims believe that "[n]ever has Islam faced such a frantic campaign of insult for centuries." They are particularly troubled because the clerics "hold high positions at the church," are close to the U.S. government, and so conclude that "their statements had a significant impact on a large segment of American society." As a result, words that are innocuous to Americans are interpreted as Christian-Judeo attacks on the things Muslims love most. "The United States has a special perception and a clear goal it wants to achieve for itself and its ally, Israel," wrote Atif Adwan, professor of politics at the Islamic University of Gaza, to explain the significance of the U.S. clerics'words in the context of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
I think I'd stay out of MegaChurches for the duration. Imagine three thousand evangelicals singing
Onward Christian Soldiers all packed together in a sanctuary. Yep, there are targets in Jesusland.