Ghost of a flea

In the event of a catastrophic al Qaeda attack against the U.S. homeland, the United States would, having set out this policy, therefore have the moral and strategic rationale to retaliate not only against al Qaeda members themselves, but also against those whose cooperation, material support, complicity, or gross negligence made the killing of thousands of Americans possible. Legitimate targets of American retaliation would now include supporters, facilitators, moneymen, back office workers, and onwards, as well as infrastructure, housing, food and other supplies, land, political control over territory, marks of prestige, and so forth. Depending upon need and the degree of culpability, American options would include detention, capture, confiscation, disabling, humiliation, pressuring, all the way up to (but not necessarily emphasizing or even including) military operations.