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--Single shot deaths are not the terrorist way. "Success is measured in body count, in shock value and in an ability to spread fear over the widest possible area," Burlingame says. "If this were part of an al Qaeda plan, we would see multiple sniper attacks in several cities, not just the Washington suburbs."

Not necessarily. First terrorism is used to bring about political change (in this case U.S. foreign policy) using fear. This does not always mean a high body count, it means striking fear into the population.

--Neither are single shot weapons. "The weapon of choice is a fully-automatic AK, spreading many shots in a wide angle and taking as many lives as possible. Squeezing off a single shot and killing only one person when so many targets are available runs counter to their philosophy. Again, body count is important."

You use the weapon that does the job. Saying a terrorist only uses the AK series is a bit naive.

--The sniper didn’t take out a law enforcement officer when he had the chance. "A Virginia State Trooper was working a traffic accident during last week’s shooting in Fredricksburg. He was clearly in the line of fire yet the shooter chose to fire over the trooper’s head to hit his primary target. An al Qaeda operative would never have passed up an opportunity to take out someone in uniform."

Terrorists strike at the soft under-belly of society. A law enforcement officer is expected to be at risk and could be condidered a legitimate combatant and therefore killing such a person would not strike as much fear as killing a civilian.

--The Tarot card proclaiming "I am God," is a clear signal. "No Muslim will lie about such a thing. They will lie about their name, their nationality or their intentions, but claiming to the God would be blasphemy. It would deny the shooter an afterlife."

Then again, the hijackers living it up drinking and partying before 9-11 were not exactly following the word of the Koran either.

I don't necessarily think this is terrorism as Burlingame did get one thing right and that is this would have to start to happen in many other locales before it could be considered an effective form of terrorism.

I have room in my head for more than one possibility.

Maybe this is the prototypical paranoiac sierra-times government/cop hater.

Maybe it isn't...

To suggest that because this isn't your understanding of what muslim terrorism is, it ISN'T, is foolish. Men box in their thinking, and pay the price.

I don't necessarily think this is terrorism as Burlingame did get one thing right and that is this would have to start to happen in many other locales before it could be considered an effective form of terrorism.

That presupposes that all Al Queda terrorism is centrally controlled, yet there has been consistent speculation that with the leadership in disarray, individual cells would have the freedom to operate autonomously. That could easily explain the "one of a kind" nature of this crime spree.