With the lack of any big Islamic terrorist attacks in the US on the level of the Paris attack I'm forced to consider several possibilites.
1. The terror threat has been vastly overblown
2. Our government security forces have successfully prevented numerous major attacks but if that was the case I suspect Obama would crow from the rooftops about how he kept us safe. Unless he didn't want to make it known that radical Islam had attempted an attack???
3. The terrorist just aren't smart enough to get it together.
4. The terrorist haven't been ready to go full tilt boogie yet.
We've seen 4-5 pretty major attacks in quick succession across Europe and Asia in the last couple of weeks. If ISIS really wants to make a statement in the US my money would be on something over the coming holiday. Big thanksgiving day parade in NYC or an handful of attacks spread out to disrupt "black Friday ". Crapping up holiday shopping would be a pretty big financial hit.
I would go with:
#2 - 25%
#3 - 50%
#4 - 25%
I do think the Feebee's and NSA have done quite a bit in disrupting potentially jihadi attacks. (Yes, they do get a lot of "Loser boy wants to impress
Jody Foster someone they want to like/pay attention to them." types, but I think they might also catch (or at least are monitoring) others that are a bit more threatening.
I think the fact is that they don't really understand us. Nor do they fight in way that makes sense to us. They are fighting symbolically. What things/places represent to them (New York- "Jerusalem or Tel Aviv West"). While hitting the twin towers was huge, not many people in America equated them with New York. Same with the dates they choose, and when they do things (other then the "Draw Mohammed" contest in Texas). Black Friday means almost nothing to someone in Afghanistan or Syria. Nor can they picture it.
Nor can they fathom that hitting a Wal-mart in East BFE would do more damage psychologically to the US, then hitting DC or New York again. Those places are EXPECTED to be targets, but if they hit the Grocery store in For-hell-and-gone, Kansas and the Drug Store in Never-heard-of-it, Kentucky, and a couple of other not famous places in rural America, especially if they can coordinate to occur in a short time frame then they will have really put US on notice. Kind like the Japanese did on 7 Dec 1941....
I bet some do get corrupted by "The Great Satan" in that while not perfect, there's at least a lot of crap to had for cheap and you you can live a hell of lot better then in whatever Islamic shithole you came from. Plus folks here are usually, genuinely nice and polite.
Some of which may work against them. I bet all their jihad volunteers are willing to strap on a vest and run headlong at the White House or US Capitol building. But trying to talk Jhonny Jihad into going all Aloha Snackbar on his local Wal-mart ("But I have 2 cousins and an uncle that work there, plus they have really good selection of DVD's and goat cheeses!"), might be a bit tougher sell on the whole 72 virgins thing and how it goes to defeating the
French Americans. .
