[jacquesm]

> You could probably accomplish the same thing much more easily by just packing a stroller full of explosives and detonating THAT in the security line.

Exactly. The problem with all this security theater is that if you wanted to just kill a bunch of people there are 100's of ways to do it, low tech and cheap.

What bugs me about all this is that the 'terrorists' so far have shown surprisingly little sophistication in the attacks they have made, mostly because they didn't have to. (well, maybe the 'shoe bomber' should count).

For the most part, if the stated goal was to bring down western society they're taking their bloody time about it, security really isn't that good.

My guess is that this is all blown way out of proportion.

Sure, there are some bad guys, but there are less of them than seems to be presented, and they're pretty busy doing other stuff.

Blowing up an airliner is a publicity stunt, it isn't going to derail society unless you let it.

Germany had an enormous terrorism flap in the 70's, and 80's, according to the media.

But in reality several tens of people died and somewhat more were wounded.

Much less than a year on the autobahn.

[hughprime]

What bugs me about all this is that the 'terrorists' so far have shown surprisingly little sophistication in the attacks they have made, mostly because they didn't have to.

That bugs you? I'm pretty grateful for it, personally.

The jihadists' greatest strength is also their greatest weakness: they're not very rational. If they were rational then they'd figure out that there are more efficient ways to kill random civilians than anything they've explored so far. On the other hand, if they were rational then they'd figure out that killing random civilians to please an invisible sky wizard is a pretty fucking stupid way to spend your life anyway.

[jacquesm]

Well, it bugs me in a sense that it makes me wonder how much of the whole thing is propaganda and how much of it is really true.

I find that I have less and less trust in media reporting. The few times that I've been eye witness to something that made it to the media made me wonder if we'd been in the same place.

Sure, there are a bunch of people hell bent on destruction. But they are either not very numerous, not very successful, not very smart or a combination of these three.

The number of them that are willing to kill random strangers is quite probably a lot lower than media attention would make you believe. Conveniently, really hard numbers do not exist.

That doesn't say they do not exist. But given the amount of attention, funds and legislation (most of which seems to affect non-terrorists) that is being spent on this there would have to be a lot more fire than I can perceive.