What is it going to take?
The U. S. is week. We are week. We are politically correct. We have nothing to solidify us. We are incohesive. We frayed apart from the seems some times during the Vietnam War I think. We fell apart. Not since the creation of the country have people been so far apart on goals and the tasks at hand. Then, there were thirteen colonies. Now there are any number of ideologies. The states feel they are on their own. The Feds seem to me to be separating themselves from the rest of the country. I have been raised in this country. I've never left. I've paid attention a little bit to things that go on around me. I don't have the answers. I understand why people hate us so much.
Have you ever watched Fight Club? Did you pay attention too the scene where the two main characters talk about a generation of men raised by women? They create fight club as a collection of men who take matters into their own hands. They beat each other to a pulp on a weekly basis. They make plastic explosives and blow up several buildings. That sounds allot like al Quida to me.
I have to tell you, I feel like a man when I watch Fight Club. I want to sign right up. Of course, it is only a movie. The thought of being a part of something larger than I appeals to me. That is why I signed up with my second job. I have a hard time dealing with the stress of two jobs.  I understand the appeal of the army. I understand the appeal of striving for a common goal. I feel the draw of the pack. Following a leader to the kill. This is how gangs work. This is how al Quida works. This is how military groups work. This is not how the U. S. works. It's a man thing.
Men in the U. S. are raised to be sensitive. We are taught to love our neighbors. That's great, if our neighbor is not a member of a different pack.  Why do they hate us? Who better to hate. They go after the leader of the pack. The "Coalition" of countries is the perfect enemy for a loosely ordered group of people who are not out to win a country, or a people, but to destroy the pack.
This whole thing really is a just a play for dominance. The followers of the clerics (militants) want to be the ones in charge of their part of Iraq or Afghanistan. America wants to stay on top. It is all just a pissing contest.
If they really wanted to wake the giant of America, they would kidnap children off the streets of the us. Then, spirit them away to a shit-hole country and ransom them for money. I think that would be the straw.