You raise good issues on all three points, but I feel that you are mischaracterizing the 'real deal' quote. This article puts the full quote as:

"This is not a case of wanna-bes fantasizing about an attack. We believe it was the real deal. To target multiple airlines with such a plan requires a sophistication that strongly points to al Qaeda," a senior U.S. official told Stewart.

The 'real deal' refers to the seriousness of the those trying to commit the act- if someone is sitting around trying but failing to commit terror, they should be held just as accountable as someone trying and succeeding.

I am curious about the trigger event today.

ABC News has gotten a little bit on that from someone:

The Anatomy of the Foiled Plot in London
August 10, 2006 9:47 AM
Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report

excerpts

....ABC News has learned that two "significant arrests" in Pakistan in recent days may have significantly accelerated the pace of the investigation.

Many of the alleged terror plotters appeared to be of Pakistani descent.

According to a Department of Homeland Security briefing to the aviation sector, the terrorists appear to have planned to use multiple persons aboard each flight to assemble peroxide-based liquid or gel high explosives....

According to federal authorities, two or three bombers would each carry a separate portion of the bomb onto the plane to avoid detection. Once onboard the bomb would be assembled and then detonated by using heat or friction.

British authorities had been tracking some of the suspects for several weeks but stepped in to round up the plotters when they began to book flight reservations and before any of the suspects purchased tickets.

British authorities have shared parts of the investigation with the FBI, and out of concern for leaks, only the barest details were shared with regional authorities as late as last night.

Now there is a continued concern that other members of the cell remain on the loose and may remain a present danger to intercontinental air traffic as well as air traffic in Europe....

This might be a good point for dems to stress (or even for Ms. Kayyem to bring up if she is to appear on MSNBC again :-))

9/11 Commissioners Warned Airplanes Vulnerable to Onboard Explosions August 10, 2006 8:40 AM Rhonda Schwartz Reports:

In December 2005, the 10 former commissioners of the 9/11 Commission issued a "dismal" report card on homeland security, including an "F" for failures to improve aviation security.

Commissioner James R. Thompson, the former governor of Illinois, warned in particular of the failure to protect against terrorists smuggling a bomb onboard a plane.

"Most Americans take it for granted that airline security problems have been fixed, or that terrorists will not target our aviation system. Both assumptions are wrong," Thompson said.

"The enemy will find and exploit soft spots in our security. Though we have hardened airliners against hijacking, they remain vulnerable to onboard explosions, such as the dual Chechen suicide bombings that brought down two Russian airliners in August 2004," he continued.....

 "The 'real deal' refers to the seriousness of the those trying to commit the act- if someone is sitting around trying but failing to commit terror, they should be held just as accountable as someone trying and succeeding."

There is a world of difference between people sitting around discussing how they would commit a terrorist act and people actively pursueing doing so, by testing explosives, acquiring explosives, learning to fly jetliners, accepting training in explosives, conducting dry runs, etc.  I don't think we know if the British group was a bunch of talkers or a bunch of doers.  And, for now, all we know is what our highly suspect governments are telling us.  Also, our laws don't treat those who discuss committing crimes the same way they treat those who actually commit crimes, nor are people who are practicing their bank robbing skills, for example, treated the same as those who rob banks.  If our laws did treat them the same, all of the  paint ball enthusiasts would be under arrest for conspiring to wage war.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Let's assume for the minute that they are the real deal - I'm as skeptical as the next guy, but because three governments were involved, and crucially, because ours was the third wheel, perhaps I'm incluned to give this one the benefit of the doubt.  Looking at those terrorist cells disrupted in the U.S. and those caught (or discovered after the fact) in Europe, the former are notable for their lack of sophistication.  Only half, by my count, of the 'Islamic terrorists' caught in the U.S. appear to be actual adherents of Islam.  Further, all seem to be sort of disaffected dreamers who, despite their ideological strains, seem to have more in common with the sort of white supremacist extremist elements than with hardcore Al Qaeda.  (The group out in the Northwest was known for going to shoot cans in the desert, and somehow they made it all the way to China before they figured out that this wasn't a viable route to Afghanistan).

My question is just this: why the difference?  There have been suggestions that it's because the U.S. is more fertile ground for moderate Islam (see this piece by Spencer Ackerman).  Others have suggested that it's more that Europe has done a poor job of assimilating immigrants.  But might it have to do with the differing traditions of extremism, and the lack of a tradition of competent, cohesive political violence here?

I dunno where I'm going with this - it just strikes me today. 

Anonymous White House official:

"Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big,"

Classy. 

Have questions about the Cafe? Try here.

What struck me this evening, watching the BBC Nightly News, was how much different the reaction was in Britain -- I'm assuming now this was indeed a "real deal" -- than it would have been in the US. The reaction came from intelligence, Scotland Yard, local police forces and (in Walthamstow and High Wycombe) city officials.

It seemed sane, focused, measured, efficient. Unlike what we've seen here. For the cynics (and my own pleasure) I posted at my place some excerpts from a Lewis Lapham satire in the latest Harper's about the enormous successes of George Bush. I recommend reading the whole thing in Harper's or, failing that, the excerpts, for a good ol' bitter laugh.

Understand the war on terror as free-market capitalist enterprise rather than as some sort of public or government service, and in the nightly newscasts we see before us victory, not defeat.... Measure the achievement by the standards that define a commercial success – maximizing the cost to the consumers of the product, minimizing the risk to the investors – and we discover in the White House and the Pentagon, also in the Congress and the Department of Homeland Security, not the crowd of incompetent fools depicted in the pages of the New York Times but a company of visionary entrepreneurs, worthy of comparison with the men who built the country's railroads and liberated the Western prairie from the undemocratic buffalo.

And then a quote from Fassbinder: "In the last analysis, terrorism is an idea generated by capitalism to justify better defense measures to safeguard capitalism."

I commend to you an observation by one of Spider Robinson's fictional characters: If a burglar is one who commits burglary, then God must be an iron, as She seems to have had a particular drive for irony in the human species.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Let me "preface" this with I dunno where I am going it it, either. :-)

But remember how the London tube bombings started out being reported as a possible al Qaeda job because there were several guys involved who traveled to Pakistan? I remember lots of articles with reporters trying to pull the strings together with relationships/trips to Pakistan.

AND THEN, as the investigation went further, the story became more and more that it was just a homegrown job, just disgruntled underclass Muslims being unable to assimilate, not sophisticated enough to be al Qaeda, yadda, yadda? And lots of stories to that effect followed, and many gleaned from that that al Qaeda was dead, that there was no organization directing this. (Then the Paris riots, and the Danish cartoons stories came after that, so there was more and more about that theme?)

BUT THEN, a year later, this happened:

Bomber appears in London anniversary tape By Yara Bayoumy July 6, 2006

DUBAI (Reuters) - On the eve of the anniversary of the London bombings, Al Jazeera television aired video footage of al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahri praising one of the suicide bombers who also appeared on the tape to threaten more attacks.

"What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq," said the bearded man, identified as Shehzad Tanweer, in a statement filmed prior to the July 7, 2005, bombings...

It WAS an al Qaeda-involved job afterall!

When I first read that, I thought that the fact that they waited a year to play that tape, almost seems an effort to make the British intel look impotent and foolish, almost a taunt. It's obvious the cellular/spiderweb structure is still there, even if Zawahiri got the suicide tape way after the fact. It makes me pause now when I read arguments such as the British government is going overboard with some of the more radical British mosques and breaching civil liberties for no cause.

Event when it is over your fences, on other lands,
treat the green green grass’s home as your friend.

It keeps the weeds from advancing to you.

--------------------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking

So it is now clear that the White House was informed of the impending bust a week before it occurred and knew the actual timing even more precisely. So its natural response was to figure out how to get maximum political gain...after all this is national security an important card in their game. So they go to a full-court press on lieberman's defeat to try to use that as one approach to painting the Dems as weak on terror (Chency and Lieberman going so far as saying it sends an encouraging sign to al Qaeda that the US no longer is fighting terrorists. What would an actual REPUBLICAN defeat tell al Qaeda? Presumably they can just walk in and take the keys of the government from the traitors and kill Americans at their leisure). Now the point I am trying to make here is that there is no line so low that the Republicans won't cross it to win an election. They take it seriously. It is after all their money at stake here. While Reid and Schumer are working on the best response to a Lamont victory and a Lieberman challenge, the Republicans are already in battle fatigues (no, I don't mean they are willing to risk body and limb), with long knives out, going for the jugular. Maybe, just maybe, our Democratic Party leaders might begin expecting the worst from our opponents, because even then they will be underestimating the depths they are willing to go.

But remember how... the story became ... just disgruntled underclass Muslims being unable to assimilate.

Um... no, actually I don't. I'm afraid you are allowing your prejudices to rewrite history for you.

Underclass: "the lowest social stratum, usually composed of the disadvantaged"

from Wikipedia

Khan was married to Hasina Patel, who is of Indian Muslim descent, a "community enrichment officer," who had worked in schools with special needs pupils. They met at Leeds Metropolitan University and married in 2001. Their daughter, Maryam, was born in May 2004. Khan worked at Hillside Primary School in Dewsbury as a "learning mentor" with the children of immigrant families who had just arrived in Britain. Khan's colleagues commented that he was a quiet individual who didn't talk about his religious or political beliefs. He was introduced to MPs Hilary Benn and Jon Trickett during his school's trip to the House of Commons in July 2004.

Tanweer was born in St Luke's maternity hospital, Bradford to Parveen Akhtar, whose husband, Mohammed Mumtaz Tanweer, was originally from the Faisalabad region of Pakistan. In 1984, the family moved to the Beeston area of Leeds, then to Colwyn Road, Leeds when Tanweer was seven. Known as Kaka (little one) by his family, he attended Wortley High School, where he was described as politically moderate by his friends, who knew him as an outstanding sportsman, excelling at cricket, triple jump, long-distance running, football, and ju-jitsu. He then attended Leeds Metropolitan University, where he studied sports science before leaving for Pakistan in 2004 to attend a course in Islamic studies.

Hussain received his primary education at Ingram Road Primary School, Holbeck. In September 1998, he began his secondary education at South Leeds High School ­ formerly the Matthew Murray High School. Despite a good attendance record he was withdrawn by teachers from all his GCSE exams before leaving school on 20 July 2003. He held a GNVQ in business studies. He was a member of the Holbeck Hornets football team and the local cricket team. When he left Matthew Murray High School in 2003,he became religious and around that time,he made friends with Mohammed Sidique Khan And Shehzad Tanweer.

Lindsay was born in Jamaica. He moved to the UK when he was 5 months old and converted to Islam at age 15. A carpet-fitter, he had previously lived in Huddersfield in West Yorkshire before moving to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. His wife, Samantha Lewthwaite, a native of Aylesbury who had also converted to Islam, lived with him and gave birth to their second child two months after his death. Germaine also persuaded his mother, Mary McLeod, the daughter of an Evangelical Christian, to convert to Islam. He engaged in "work experience" with a local council, which he is said to have enjoyed, although the pay was poor. Claims have been made that Lindsay was a violent drug dealer in Huddersfield prior to his conversion to Islam

Only one of the 4 London bombers could with any justification be described as being part of an "underclass". And I don't think being a member of the local football and cricket teams indicates much of an inability to assimilate.

If I sound snarky it is because I have come to find very tedious the Horowitzian meme that infects both left and right in this country, that all over racist Europe Muslims are treated as second class citizens (if citizens at all), as opposed to the great welcoming melting pot of the US.

Things are not that simple.

I think you're not giving Art her due - I didn't hear her saying that this was the true story, that this was the factual account that was available, but that the pop-sociology news spin on things was such.  I don't think that's far off base - that's how I remember the spin, as well.  

It (7/7) WAS an al Qaeda-involved job afterall!  artappraiser

What makes you think so?  There's nothing on the tape to suggest it. 

I didn't hear her saying that this was the true story, that this was the factual account that was available, but that the pop-sociology news spin on things was such.

Point taken.