> Realistically, al Qaeda is a defunct organization Based on what actual evidence? Al Qaeda has pulled off attacks in Africa and other countries besides Afghan

> Realistically, al Qaeda is a defunct organization Based on what actual evidence? Al Qaeda has pulled off attacks in Africa and other countries besides Afghanistan and Yemen. It's a distributed organization and ideology. I'm not saying this isn't true (I would like it to be), but claims like this sound like wishful thinking. As though Westerners cannot fathom a reason why other groups of people would want to kill them and so it surely must be a 'boogeyman'. Your statements read as though you're trying to convince yourself. This is not an argument for the TSA (if that wasn't clear). It is possible for Al Qaeda to be a threat and for the TSA to be an inappropriate way to deal with that threat.