Fear and Trembling

[John Young]

The next major attack will not likely involve civilian aircraft; 
that target has been effectively crippled, wounded not killed
so that  resources must be squandered to care for it.

More likely will be a target (or targets) which provides a 
sense of security and does not appear to be a source of 
danger and fear. Where there are few protections in place, and
where the shock of attack will be maximized, not just
in casualities but in its unexpectedness.

The attack should have the effect on Western culture,
say, that bombing of Mecca would have on Islam. That is,
it should be so violently audacious that long-standing
presumptions that the enemy would never do such a
thing are overwhelmed.

Under this scenario attack by weapons of mass destruction 
are not likely because of the overplay of their possible use.

What then would be such an attack, least expected and
most likely to be unprotected against?

Most likely is a widely distributed attack, perhaps simultaneous
but best to be staggered or unpredictable in time and how
extensive the attack is and what all its targets are. With
unpredictable pauses in the campaign, a combination of
rapid fire hits, pauses, seeming cessation, then a hit or
two, weird and shocking concordances and discordances
with other events, violations and cruelties beyond conventional
belief, beyond reason and madness.

A clue to understanding what an attack like this would be is
to imagine what would cause battle shock in the citizenry,
not terror and flight, but incapacitation of the mind and body
to function without physically harming most of the victims.

One likely cause of this breakdown is lack of information
about what is going on and what will happen next, where danger
lies and when will violence against loved ones and self occur
next. Dread of the unknown after initial evidence that horror
is sure to come, and is inexcapable no matter what measures
have been taken to prevent it.

By now it is clear that this is what the US military did in 
Afghanistan, and what is most likely to be done to the US
and its allies in vengeful payback, if not soon then eventually.

Calling in F-15s to combat shoes containing explosives shows
how Western military forces helplessly misgauge its enemies. So,
too, does declaring the US has won in Afghanistan when it has not
engaged the enemy, and when it has repeatedly failed to protect 
its forces, its embassies and its cities from asymmetric attack.

The US and its allies is fiercest in engaging in propaganda,
ably assisted by commercial propagandists, the news media.
Beheading the centers of information warfare would be the end 
of Western culture.