[mikeash]

I don't quite buy it. The Boston bombs were extremely amateur and small, and yet they managed to shut down the entire city for a day. A big rolling suitcase full of powerful explosives and shrapnel set off in a security line at peak time in a large airport would be way worse. And if that's not enough, do it again, and again. One security line bombing a month until the end of time would be fairly easy and would cause complete chaos.

The real reason this doesn't happen is that there are almost no terrorists in the US in the first place. There is plenty of opportunity, whether it's airport security lines, sporting events, or simply using one of the sixteen thousand trivial ways to get contraband past the TSA. The only reason planes aren't constantly falling out of the sky and our airports aren't all smoking craters is that essentially nobody is truly willing to carry out such attacks in the first place.

[anigbrowl]

Your arguments are not really responsive.

A big rolling suitcase full of powerful explosives and shrapnel set off in a security line at peak time in a large airport would be way worse.

I gave you an example of a car bomb that killed only 30 people even though it was set off in a crowded market. Have you ever seen a car bomb go off? I have, it's huge. What's your basis for assuming that a suitcase bomb is going to be so much more devastating?

Certainly there is plenty of opportunity, but you're making a chicken-and-egg argument by saying there's very little terrorism, therefore security is a waste of time. I'm saying that that the payoff for the risk involved is not enough for most people.

And if that's not enough, do it again, and again. One security line bombing a month until the end of time would be fairly easy and would cause complete chaos.

I mentioned the northern Irish terrorist problem because I'm from Ireland and later lived in London. One bombing a month does not cause complete chaos, it just pisses people off and creates more public support for stiffer security measures, more intrusive surveillance and so on.

I suggest you step back from your assumptions of what would happen and look at available documentation of what actually does happen in countries with long-running insurgencies or terrorist problems, from the UK to Sri Lanka to Colombia, cases of actual disasters (whether engineered or accidental) at airports and public transit hubs.

[mikeash]

The suitcase bomb was compared to the ridiculous pressure cooker bombs used in Boston, not car bombs. I did not state that they'd be worse than a big car bomb. I did not make any such comparison.

You misunderstand my argument. I'm not saying that there's very little terrorism, therefore security is a waste of time. I'm saying that many of our security measures are a waste of time because they don't stop terrorism, and I say this because they're trivial to bypass. That terrorism is so rare in this country is not because of agencies like TSA, but because there are approximately no terrorists to be stopped in the first place.

In places where there are a lot of terrorists, they carry out bombings pretty regularly. Regardless of whether you think it's effective, they clearly do. Yet they don't do it in the US. And it's not because TSA is stopping them, nor is anybody else set up to stop those sorts of attacks that regularly happen in places like Iraq. The only reasonable conclusion is that they don't happen because nobody here wants to carry them out.