What Will Their Side Do When Our Side Starts “Asymmetric Warfare”?

The fundamental ingredients of 911 were: a batty tycoon intent on revenge and a handful of suicidal loons with pilot training. We have more tycoons than they do and our suicide rate is not zero. All we need to do is identify people similar to the Columbine killers and we have more psychiatrists than they do, so it should be possible.

We can even be more brutal than they can. If they try capturing relatives of big shots, they will find that a nation of individualists is almost immune to such pressure. A nation of extended families, on the other hand …

If they took advantage our open society, we can take advantage of theirs. Islam was a relatively open society first. They still welcome converts. What if someone converts in order to infiltrate? So … if a young fake “convert” to Islam were to make a pilgrimage while carrying smallpox …

Another tactic we could use more than they can is smuggled bombs. The OPEC nations import far more than we do and export far less (except for oil). We can put more bombs in their imports than they can put in ours.

They have some targets available. We might have more targets, but that makes any given target less important. When the WTC went, business could move into other skyscrapers. When the Petronas Towers go …

Most important of all, they have more immovable targets than we do. We could scatter the top management of the US government around the US. (This might generally apply to organizations with enemies. Redmond, WA might ask Microsoft to scatter.) They can't do the same with Mecca. I suspect it will probably be just as easy to assassinate their top management as our top management … and our top management is more replaceable.

We can hold their sacred sites hostage. Christians don't care that much about sacred sites and Jews are used to having them destroyed.

Even “dirty bombs” may be more dangerous to them than to us. It will probably be easier to wash cesium-137 off asphalt in a rainy climate than to wash it out of sand in a dry climate.

They have boasted about their ability to brainwash their kids with toy bombs. We can use similar methods.

Last but not least: the Aswan Dam.

As the saying goes: “Kill Americans and you're dead meat.”