[sokoloff]

Terrorists' [presumed] goal is not to maximize body count per unit effort; it's to maximize terror (perhaps per unit effort, but it's not clear to me).

The reason to target someplace like airport security is precisely because the TSA is standing right there and everyone's been to an airport and stood in that line. If you firebomb a nightclub, many people just shrug and think "Hell, I don't go to nightclubs."

If you blow up a security line at an airport, people freak out, because nearly everyone can put themselves in that situation and therefore become fearful that you could have killed them within a dozen yards of a cadre of TSA staff and there's nothing we can do about it. Terror is the goal; killing people is merely incidental or secondary to that goal. Think about how many more billions of dollars the Western world has been "forced" to spend on security post 9-11. Think about how large a factor that is compared to the actual damage done on 9-11.

If you believe that the TSA stands ready and trained to identify and thwart such an attack, you have vastly more faith in them than I do. (Not specifically a slam against TSA, but more an observation that it's a very difficult problem.)