Silentsoul,
Keep in mind that what you or I may think of as an American icon may not be what an Arab Muslim may think of as an American icon.
The attack on the WTC towers was not the first time they had been targeted. Six people were killed and more than a thousand injured when a van exploded in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in 1993. Americans were then faced with the task of trying to pronounce and remember Arabic names like Mahmud Abouhalima, Ramzi Yousef, Nidal Ayyad, and Amad Mohammad Ajaj. It was comic.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/wtc93.htm
Additional bombings would occur with the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, a Hard Rock Cafe in South Africa, and others.
As I recall, back in the early 1940s another militant group opened a rather large can of whup-ass on the U.S. (“day of infamy” and all that), and followed it up with some additional attacks on U.S. interests in the Philippines. America seemed to pull through that, although it did take 3 years or so.
While a one-two punch on the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge may indeed have made a complete shambles of the U.S., I think many of the residents of Marin County would have found some way of coping. Granted, the property values may have declined, what with the loss of tourists to Muir Woods, but hey, that’s what insurance is for, no?
Oh yes, in re the top two U.S. tourist spots: actually, Los Angeles is the #2 destination. San Francisco is #5
http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/f-200...25.234204.15738