I don't see any necessary connection between:

A. "underestimating" the resourcefulness of "international" terrorists (or downplaying "their" intentions)

and

B. overreacting to every incident as a possible terrorist probe.

That is, just because there is A does not mean there is always B (or vice versa).

We have a lot of B going on nowadays.

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True, but bringing the discussion back to the article, the author didn't provide any evidence that any of the reported incidents were "dry runs" by terrorist, yet implied that they all were!

I think what's goig on here, as you alluded to as a possibility, is that in a heightened state of vigilence, everything looks suspicious. It doesn't mean that those activities are happening with any higher frequency than before, just that you are noticing them more.

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I'm not the topic. Above mischaracterizations, stated and implied, set aside.

No; by your own admission above, we don't get it all in this forum.

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Before the news-hungry media reacts, the actors being covered have had to do something. So the "non-incidents" just happen to be mostly overreactions. Then again when paranoia is at the core of the message being spread from the political and media bully-pulpits, this is no surprise.

The point also being that I'm not the topic.

Well, I'll state the point again, but only a bit more bluntly.

"No; by your own admission above, we don't get it all in this forum." Why is that? Because as your own example shows with

A. "airport security is not as effective as it could be is one thing"

and

B. "it is a complete waste of time and not provide any specifics is to poo-poo the idea just because it causes inconveniences or violates a naive interpretation of civil liberties"

there's little qualitative difference between the two except that the TSA-is-mostly-good crowd finds A to be a more substantive point while a good size of the TSA-is-mostly-a-waste crowd finds B to be a more substantive point. Of course disparaging the position of "the enemy" by seeing one as more substantive than the other thing is telling enough.

So we don't get it all, at least not all of the time.

It just happened also that she was married to a Muslim whom she qualifies as a radical extremist and from whom she has managed to "escape" with her children.
As far as her political agendas - well it is not difficult to see where she is coming from - an axe to grind for her youthful mistakes

That reminds me of Ann Coulter who considers herself an expert on Islam too. Carnal relations ending on a sour note (for one party); fortunately no kids involved that time.

This would be like OBL's alienated half-brother claiming to be a counterterrorism expert by measure of having been around his half-brother OBL before getting in a fight with him.

Life must be tough for a trophy wife

The thread is getting off topic. My two cents:

1. I believe that terrorist types are conducting passive surveillence of security and are probably conducting dry runs of some kind or another. I've got no proof of this other than it's what I would be doing if I were working for a terrorist organization.

2. We will never know for sure unless we either catch someone in the act (hard to prove unless they are committing a crime) or someone admits to probing security (not bloody likely).

Can you please tell us who these so called "terrorists" are that you speak of?

Do you also believe that, at this very moment, burglars are coducting passive surveilence of your house -- because "it's what [you] would be doing if [you] were a burglar"?!?

I would think it is a good guess that he is referring to Al Qaeda. Do you not consider them to be terrorists? If you do, why did you find it necessary to use quotation marks around the word?