I think I'm going to have to backtrack on a prior statement – assuming what we've been hearing about the US-UK airline terror plot is true, it appears that this threat is not a politically inflated prop, but is instead a real, concrete plan.
That being said, some intelligence analysts are stating that the US still suffers from the primary deficiency that we had in the summer of 2001 – a failure lack of imagination.
Case in point – it was often repeated that "we had no idea AQ would use planes as flying bombs", despite the foiled Project Bojinka, and several war games focused on just that. Furthermore, what of the FBI agents trailing the AQ operatives who pulled of 9/11, and never had a creative brainstorming session wondering why these guy were taking flying lessons, and explicitly learning how to fly, with no desire to learn how to take off or land.
You would wonder why AQ would be still on the airplane-centric plans. People operating under the old paradigm of terror – namely the brutal, overwhelming, and "spectacular" (I always hated that they described the 9/11 attacks, from AQs perspective, as "spectacular") destruction of airplanes and hundreds of deaths, or the use of planes and bombs doesn't get it. The destruction of symbolic buildings and national treasures, as well as the death of people, are collateral damage – they want economic disruption – the halting of our commerce.
Bin Laden and company are not dumb. They've learned the lesson of Afghanistan. Although a certain slice of the American body politik believe that Ronald Reagan singlehandedly defeated the Soviet Union, the USSR was certainly helped along by their quagmire in Afghanistan.
