However, the dismaying part of all this is that our government (yup, including the Repubs, including GW and his otherwise competent cabinet) simply cannot get away with doing anything remotely like you're talking about.
Could Al-Queda do anything and still count on us not retaliating? That's what I'm afraid of.
If there is some "threshhold" damage they inflict on us which would trigger a massive response from us against some terrorist state (say daisy cutters, or nukes), our government is (probably prudently) not saying what that threshhold is.
But, the scary thing is that evey they (i.e. our government) doesn't know what the threshhold is, or (worse) the threshold is up for grabs (like our posture toward Arafat).
Everyone keeps saying this is a whole new ball game. I agree. And, it looks like we're having to learn the rules by trial and error as the play proceeds.