'Plot to blow up planes' foiled

[A_Wanderer]

But I guess my point is, if they had already snuck the bomb on the plane and seated, what's going to deter them from pushing the buttom on the cell phone, camera, or whatever the reported device was going to be?


As far as making it worse. What's to stop someone with 1/2 of Jack Bauer's ability to take away these arms and turn them on to the passengers?

You can do very little damage to a lot of people with a low velocity pistol or a taser, so grabbing a marshalls weapon does not seem to be a threat. Having Air Marshalls has been an effective detterent for El Al, and they profile so non-Jews are medium risk and Muslims are high risk for security. Religious profiling strikes me as legitimate.

 

[deep]

here's how to stop terrorists from blowing up and hijacking planes:

take a look at countries that are not victims of terrorists' attacks

and compare their foreign policy
to America's foreign policy

perhaps it is time to rethink
or better yet

think clearly about why America does what it does
in relationship to what it gets for what it does

 

[A_Wanderer]

Seems an adequate explanation for the terror plot against Canada.

 

[nbcrusader]

take a look at countries that are not victims of terrorists' attacks

and compare their foreign policy
to America's foreign policy

perhaps it is time to rethink
or better yet

think clearly about why America does what it does
in relationship to what it gets for what it does

Do you teach that bad things happen to those who sin?

Or would you prefer Hezbollah to set US foreign policy?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

take a look at countries that are not victims of terrorists' attacks

and compare their foreign policy
to America's foreign policy

perhaps it is time to rethink
or better yet

think clearly about why America does what it does
in relationship to what it gets for what it does

How do you explain all the terrorist plots, foiled and otherwise, that happened under Presidents who didn't have the type of foreign policy that Bush has? Bush is not the only reason.

Bottom line is, money. The airports, airlines and the govt don't always want to spend the maximum money on security. Some technology is available and very expensive, granted some isn't. Terrorists like al-Quada are the definition of evil genius. They study and plot and know so much about what can be detected, how to hide it, etc. Yes no security is 100 percent failsafe, but all involved could make their best effort and could do more. It means delays and inconvenience for the passengers, but that's the reality. Most people are willing to put up with it.

Congress actually asked for a test which was done a few months ago, to get the components of liquid and other types of explosives on planes, and in over 20 airports the testers were able to get them on undetected. I saw so many shows last night that I can't keep them straight now, it might have been on msnbc. I believe it was, they showed an earlier NBC video report from Lisa Myers on the subject. It was also discussed on Paula Zahn

Paula Zahn transcript

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0608/10/pzn.01.html

ZAHN: But you have got Representative John Mica out there, who happens to be the chairman of the Transportation Subcommittee, saying that the system that we now have in place is farcical, and that the failure rate to detect explosives is just disastrous.

TOWNSEND: There's no question, Paula, that the Department of Homeland Security works with industry to push the technology, so it improves. And they have gotten greater explosive-detection equipment, with greater reliability.

And we will continue to work with industry and push them, and get the state-of-the-art equipment, and have it deployed in airports.

ZAHN: Is this fair criticism, on his part, because Representative Mica goes on to say that billions of dollars have been spent on this very specific kind of equipment you're talking about, that would detect explosives, but, in many cases, it's sitting on shelves and not even being used.

TOWNSEND: You know, Paula, this is the first I -- I'm hearing of Representative Mica's criticism.

I can tell you, having worked with Kip Hawley, who's the head of TSA, and with Secretary Chertoff, there is no higher priority than ensuring that this equipment is timely deployed, that the screeners have the adequate training, so they're using it properly, and ensuring that we get the maximum advantage of that equipment and the money that we're spending on aviation security.

ZAHN: You say you're hearing some of Representative Mica's criticism for the first time.

And, yet, there was a pretty stinging GAO report that came out at the beginning of the spring, suggesting some major deficiencies in how the TSA was operating. Has anything changed? Have things gotten better since that report came out?

TOWNSEND: You know, I -- I can tell you, I know that Secretary -- having spoken to him, Secretary Chertoff and Kip Hawley made a priority out of going through the -- working with the inspector general, going through that report, and ensuring that changes, specific changes, to their -- to the findings were put in place.


CLARK KENT ERVIN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it isn't, Paula.

I was really fascinated by that interview.

To say a word about that GAO report you talked about, congressional investigators were able, just a few months ago, to sneak bomb components, ingredients that, by themselves, are benign, but together, mixed together, could be explosives, past screeners at 21 airports in the country, undetected.

At the time, Kip Hawley, the head of TSA, to whom Ms. Townsend referred, really pooh-poohed the report, and said, well, it's just a hypothetical possibility. We really need not worry about that.

And, today, obviously, we see that al Qaeda was planning to do just that.


ZAHN: So, what can really be done to prevent -- and I know nothing is ever 100 percent safe -- but prevent explosives, potentially, from being allowed to come on a plane?

ERVIN: Well, you're right to say that we can't have 100 percent security. That's right.

But there are certainly things that we could do that would make us significantly safer. One such thing is to significantly increase the percentage of luggage. It should be 100 percent of luggage that is inspected for explosives.

And individuals, passengers, should be inspected for trace explosives. But, as you noted, the percentage is around 10 to 20 percent. There might not be an anomaly in a bag that would trigger additional explosive-detection technology.

It needs to happen as a matter of course. And I hope, as a result of this plot having been, fortunately, foiled, that that's where we're going to go to right away.

ZAHN: So, when Ms. Townsend says we should feel pretty safe getting on an airplane tonight, are -- are you saying that we shouldn't get on airplanes at all?

ERVIN: No, I'm not saying that. We can't live our lives in fear.

And, certainly, there is a possibility that we could be attacked at any time. What I am saying, though, is that there are significant vulnerabilities that we have not taken seriously.

For example, there's cargo in the cargo holds of about 20 percent of the passenger planes that fly in America, and virtually none of that cargo is inspected before it goes into the cargo hold. That's inexcusable. There's 100 percent inspection in Britain, Israel, and the Netherlands.

 

[U2@NYC]

Perfect timing for these announcements.

Perfect timing to distract the population from what is going on in the Middle East and allow Bush and Blair to basically do whatever they want there.

I honestly question the timing of this announcement very much and, as Michael Moore said, start to think that this is a way of playing with the public opinion, and making them afraid.

 

[david_samson]

I saw this news on tv the other night..discouraging piece of information needless to say. Gives me extra patient though for that tight security i have to go through everytime i fly.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Editorial

Assessing our adversaries

By Graham Allison | August 11, 2006

AS THE World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks become a more distant memory, many Americans comfort themselves with the thought that 9/11 was a freak accident or a 100-year flood. Yesterday's arrest of 21 suspected terrorists, who were in the operational stage of preparation to blow up airplanes en route from Britain to the United States, serves as another stark wake-up call to the brute fact that so many find so hard to believe: There are a large number of people in the world who seriously want to kill us.

As we applaud the diligence of British security services that unraveled this plot, there are deeper questions Americans should reflect on. Why are so many people prepared to give up their own lives to kill Americans? Why are there so many people in the world who support them? Why do so many people believe that their methods are justifiable?

A year into the war in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld posed a similar question to his four closest colleagues in the Pentagon in a memo that was subsequently leaked. About US strategy in the global war on terrorism, he asked: ``Are we capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us?"

Assessing our adversaries' numbers dynamically and seeking to understand their motivation clinically is not to sympathize with them, but to attempt to design better strategies to defeat them. That requires understanding how our actions increase sympathy, support, and incentives for would-be killers. As commanders of US forces in Iraq have observed, if by calling down airstrikes on a house containing one terrorist and 10 innocents we subtract one terrorist but recruit 10 replacements, we move backward in our mission.

Nine months after 9/11, Al Qaeda announced its goal to kill four million Americans. As an affiliated website stated: ``We have the right to kill four million Americans -- two million of them children -- and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands" to compensate for the Muslims killed by what Osama bin Laden called the ``Jewish-Christian crusaders."

One can only imagine how bin Laden's target number is growing as the war in Iraq continues, and now as Israel pursues its campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.

The capture of the would-be plane bombers in London should cause us to reflect on our longer-run strategy for what the president has rightly called the ``long war" on terrorism. In that war, there are today more people who see the United States as the major threat to themselves than there were on 9/11. In that war, the war in Iraq has caused more people around the world to support terrorists who want to kill us. Clearly, we must continue efforts at monitoring, disrupting, capturing, incarcerating, or eliminating determined killers. But a strategic reassessment of our longer-term strategy for the war on terrorism would highlight at least three areas that require substantial change on our part.

First, we must acknowledge that the surest way to generate terrorists is to occupy their territory. The French learned this in Algeria; the Israelis, in the occupation of Lebanon from 1978 to 2000. To the extent that US troops are seen as occupiers in Iraq or Israeli troops occupiers in Lebanon, history would predict we motivate terrorists. The quiet, unadvertised withdrawal of US forces from bases in Saudi Arabia removed one of bin Laden's raison d'etre: to force American and other ``crusaders" to remove their troops from Arab lands.

Second, we must recognize that most of the actions required to discover and capture terrorist plotters like the ``London 21" will be taken by other governments -- or not at all. However great our effort, it cannot approach the extent and effectiveness of the British government in Britain, the Saudi government in Saudi Arabia, the Pakistani government in its country. But gaining their assistance will require greater sensitivity to these governments' and their citizens' concerns on issues at the top of their agendas. To Americans who ask why we care that majorities even in allied countries disapprove of the United States and especially the Bush administration and believe that America is the greatest threat to international security, the answer is that their cooperation in outing a jihadist in their midst may be essential to our security.

Finally, we must delegitimize terrorism -- making it as internationally unacceptable as slavery or piracy.

As President Bush has rightly said, we live in a ``dangerous world." Effectively combating this threat will, however, require more imagination and harder choices in the long run.

Graham Allison is director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and author of ``Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe."

 

[MaxFisher]

Perfect timing for these announcements.

Perfect timing to distract the population from what is going on in the Middle East and allow Bush and Blair to basically do whatever they want there.

I honestly question the timing of this announcement very much and, as Michael Moore said, start to think that this is a way of playing with the public opinion, and making them afraid.

WTF?

2000-3000 lives were just saved by Pakastani, British, and US agencys working together. You're honestly going to question the timing of these arrests?

Try and to see the big picture here and get beyond your loony Michael Moore conspiracy BS.

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

Perfect timing for these announcements.

Perfect timing to distract the population from what is going on in the Middle East and allow Bush and Blair to basically do whatever they want there.

I honestly question the timing of this announcement very much and, as Michael Moore said, start to think that this is a way of playing with the public opinion, and making them afraid.

Oh dear.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Perfect timing for these announcements.

Perfect timing to distract the population from what is going on in the Middle East and allow Bush and Blair to basically do whatever they want there.

I honestly question the timing of this announcement very much and, as Michael Moore said, start to think that this is a way of playing with the public opinion, and making them afraid.

Your skepticism is very good and I hope that it is completely unwarranted, but keep asking the questions. The time when we don't hear these opinions expressed is the time that they may actually be true.

 

[nathan1977]

Perfect timing for these announcements.

Perfect timing to distract the population from what is going on in the Middle East and allow Bush and Blair to basically do whatever they want there.

I honestly question the timing of this announcement very much and, as Michael Moore said, start to think that this is a way of playing with the public opinion, and making them afraid.

Sorry, but this is absolute bullocks. My parents live a quarter-mile from where one of the cells was located. They called me yesterday with helicopters soaring overhead and their city street on the news.

The people who shut this operation down were HEROES. Anyone who says differently...well, I have two words for you.

 

[Numb1075]

The people who shut this operation down were HEROES. Anyone who says differently...well, I have two words for you.

amen

 

[U2@NYC]

WTF?

2000-3000 lives were just saved by Pakastani, British, and US agencys working together. You're honestly going to question the timing of these arrests?

Try and to see the big picture here and get beyond your loony Michael Moore conspiracy BS.

I'm sorry if you do not like it and love to suck up to whatever the Government tells you.

I have the right not to trust whatever is filtered by this very biased Government, that every time that sees a reduction in popularity ratings, comes up with a new "threat" to justify the war on terrorism.

Yes, I will question the timing of these arrests and their nature. And I'm not saying that they were unwarranted or not, but every single act done by the Bush - Blair alliance will always warrant my suspicion.

 

[U2@NYC]

Sorry, but this is absolute bullocks. My parents live a quarter-mile from where one of the cells was located. They called me yesterday with helicopters soaring overhead and their city street on the news.

The people who shut this operation down were HEROES. Anyone who says differently...well, I have two words for you.

Great. I'm glad they put on a great show.

Listen, I'm not saying that all these conspiracy was a lie. I'm saying that I question its truth and fundaments, and that its timing is, as I said before, questionable.

I'm sorry, I do not believe everything that has been told by Bush, Blair and their friends and September 11th. And, although I do not think this was all a conspiracy, I think that there are several "questionable" facts and that yesterday's announcement falls among them.

And, given that I'm flying to London in a month, I have a personal take in this matter.

 

[Irvine511]

Yes, I will question the timing of these arrests and their nature. And I'm not saying that they were unwarranted or not, but every single act done by the Bush - Blair alliance will always warrant my suspicion.

and that's what's so sad. i question it too, though it does seem as if this particular plot was the real deal.

9/11 is perhaps the most politically manipulated historical even in recent American history. there were blatant examples of the government ratcheting up the Terror Alert when there was little to no evidence at key political moment -- the threat to the Citigroup towers in NYC right after Kerry selected Edwards as his running mate springs to mind.

and look at Cheney's comments that Mrs. S. posted in another thread -- essentially, if you don't vote for Republicans, you're going to die.

i think this particular plot is the real deal, but this administration has cried "wolf" so many times that rampant cynicism and distrust is exactly what it deserves.

 

[JMScoopy]

Sorry, but this is absolute bullocks. My parents live a quarter-mile from where one of the cells was located. They called me yesterday with helicopters soaring overhead and their city street on the news.

The people who shut this operation down were HEROES. Anyone who says differently...well, I have two words for you.

 

[U2@NYC]

As we applaud the diligence of British security services that unraveled this plot [...] The capture of the would-be plane bombers in London should cause us to reflect on our longer-run strategy for what the president has rightly called the ``long war" on terrorism [...] First, we must acknowledge that the surest way to generate terrorists is to occupy their territory [...] As President Bush has rightly said, we live in a ``dangerous world."

See what I was saying?

We will see a lot of articles praising Bush and Blair for de-arming this plot... exactly what they needed to legitimize their actions and increase their popularity ratings.

Exactly what I was talking about.

 

[U2@NYC]

and that's what's so sad. i question it too, though it does seem as if this particular plot was the real deal.

9/11 is perhaps the most politically manipulated historical even in recent American history. there were blatant examples of the government ratcheting up the Terror Alert when there was little to no evidence at key political moment -- the threat to the Citigroup towers in NYC right after Kerry selected Edwards as his running mate springs to mind.

and look at Cheney's comments that Mrs. S. posted in another thread -- essentially, if you don't vote for Republicans, you're going to die.

i think this particular plot is the real deal, but this administration has cried "wolf" so many times that rampant cynicism and distrust is exactly what it deserves.

 

[MaxFisher]

See what I was saying?

We will see a lot of articles praising Bush and Blair for de-arming this plot... exactly what they needed to legitimize their actions and increase their popularity ratings.

Exactly what I was talking about.

If the attacks had taken place, you'd have blamed Bush for being incompetent.

If the attacks are prevented, it's political posturing by Bush

It's a Catch 22 with people like you. I've been over at Daily Kos today and the conspiracy hysteria is laughable. So glad these wing bats are taking over the Dem party. I think we can look forward to many more GOP victories.

And by the way, I don't believe everything my Govt tells me. When British and Pakastani sources/agencies are corroborating the same info regarding these planned attacks, I'm convinced.

 

[Salome]

I have doubts when I hear anything re. preventing terrorist actions

it would be completely stupid for anyone to make this up though
flights all over Europe are disturbed
plane companies are losing major money
talk is that the oil price will go down because the use of kerosene will drop quite a bit

if this turns out to be some elaborate Bush/Blair hoax (and these things never stay a secret forever) both men would be beyond tarnished for life
they would have no life left really

it's fair enough to distrust these people
but to think they would make up these terrorist attacks and as a result of this disrupt (perhaps slightly but still) the european economy to - in your words - "distract the population from what is going on in the Middle East and allow Bush and Blair to basically do whatever they want there" is a wee bit on the ludicrous side

 

[A_Wanderer]

If the attacks had taken place, you'd have blamed Bush for being incompetent.

If the attacks are prevented, it's political posturing by Bush

It's a Catch 22 with people like you. I've been over at Daily Kos today and the conspiracy hysteria is laughable. So glad these wing bats are taking over the Dem party. I think we can look forward to many more GOP victories.

And by the way, I don't believe everything my Govt tells me. When British and Pakastani sources/agencies are corroborating the same info regarding these planned attacks, I'm convinced.

It's wing-nut and moonbat, wing-bats would be third party nutters.

 

[Irvine511]

If the attacks had taken place, you'd have blamed Bush for being incompetent.

If the attacks are prevented, it's political posturing by Bush

It's a Catch 22 with people like you. I've been over at Daily Kos today and the conspiracy hysteria is laughable. So glad these wing bats are taking over the Dem party. I think we can look forward to many more GOP victories.

And by the way, I don't believe everything my Govt tells me. When British and Pakastani sources/agencies are corroborating the same info regarding these planned attacks, I'm convinced.

i agree that this was the real deal.

however, my other points still stand -- Bush has bludgeoned the American public with 9-11, "mushroom clouds," and false terror "alerts" (remember the duct tape?) so many times that i can't help but take each new incident with a degree of skepticism that i would never have in the past.

 

[U2@NYC]

If the attacks had taken place, you'd have blamed Bush for being incompetent.

If the attacks are prevented, it's political posturing by Bush

It's a Catch 22 with people like you. I've been over at Daily Kos today and the conspiracy hysteria is laughable. So glad these wing bats are taking over the Dem party. I think we can look forward to many more GOP victories.

And by the way, I don't believe everything my Govt tells me. When British and Pakastani sources/agencies are corroborating the same info regarding these planned attacks, I'm convinced.

Oh, you are a Republican, it seems.

That explains it.

Listen, I do not want to convert this thread into a Republican vs. Democrats one, as this goes beyond the point. If the British and Pakistani corroboration is enough for you, so be it, it is clearly not enough for me and I will always read these announcements with a grain of salt. I will not dismiss them but I won't also start praising Bush or Blair for their great strike on terrorism.

 

[MaxFisher]

It's wing-nut and moonbat, wing-bats would be third party nutters.

Thanks. I can't keep my wings and bats straight today.

 

[U2@NYC]

I have doubts when I hear anything re. preventing terrorist actions

it would be completely stupid for anyone to make this up though
flights all over Europe are disturbed
plane companies are losing major money
talk is that the oil price will go down because the use of kerosene will drop quite a bit

if this turns out to be some elaborate Bush/Blair hoax (and these things never stay a secret forever) both men would be beyond tarnished for life
they would have no life left really

it's fair enough to distrust these people
but to think they would make up these terrorist attacks and as a result of this disrupt (perhaps slightly but still) the european economy to - in your words - "distract the population from what is going on in the Middle East and allow Bush and Blair to basically do whatever they want there" is a wee bit on the ludicrous side

Well, maybe they are using this to increase their popularity ratings, which are not exactly the highest at this point. Let's face it, we are seeing many articles in the press today praising Bush, Blair on a great strike on terrorism. They needed that. And I think they have "played" with audiences in the past to get further support.

 

[MaxFisher]

Oh, you are a Republican, it seems.

That explains it.

Listen, I do not want to convert this thread into a Republican vs. Democrats one, as this goes beyond the point. If the British and Pakistani corroboration is enough for you, so be it, it is clearly not enough for me and I will always read these announcements with a grain of salt. I will not dismiss them but I won't also start praising Bush or Blair for their great strike on terrorism.

My guess is that nothing would convince you. Your animosity for Bush tends to remove any semblance of rationality from people like you. Keep drinking the Kool Aid dude. And don't forget to sign up for the Flat Earth Society while you're at it.

 

[U2@NYC]

My guess is that nothing would convince you. Your animosity for Bush tends to remove any semblance of rationality from people like you. Keep drinking the Kool Aid dude. And don't forget to sign up for the Flat Earth Society while you're at it.

Sure, being ironic gains you much further credibility.

And Bush gained his animosity. And his 30% popularity ratings.

 

[sulawesigirl4]

There's an interesting article at salon.com about this very same plot being known about a long time ago. Since viewing requires registration (or watching a commercial), I'll post it here in its entirety.

Getting beyond our airport security obsession
Confiscating corkscrews and tweezers didn't make us safer after Sept. 11. And banning liquids isn't going to make us safer now.

By Patrick Smith

Aug. 10, 2006 | Terrorists intend to destroy several jumbo jets over the ocean using liquid explosives smuggled aboard in carry-on luggage. The plot is foiled in the nick of time by authorities.

August 2006? No, it's 1994, and the sinister plan, nicknamed "Oplan Bojinka," is under the direction of Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a pair of terrorist conspirators hiding out in Manila, Philippines. Khalid would later lead the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Yousef was already responsible for having organized the World Trade Center prelude bombing in 1993.

Oplan Bojinka is Arabic slang for "Operation Big Bang." It is funded by a renegade Saudi named Osama bin Laden and Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesian operative who goes by the name Hambali.

Yousef grew up in Kuwait and became a master mixer of hard-to-detect liquid incendiaries. At one point he completed a successful Bojinka test run onboard a Philippine Airlines 747, killing a Japanese businessman with a small underseat explosion. Yousef himself, traveling with a forged Italian passport, smuggled the necessary components onto the airplane, including nitroglycerin hidden inside a converted bottle of contact lens solution.

Filipino police uncover the Bojinka plot from a Toshiba laptop in Yousef's Manila apartment, also used as an explosives lab, after they are called to the scene because of a chemical fire. It is two weeks before the attacks are scheduled to take place. Yousef flees to Pakistan and is arrested in Islamabad six weeks later by Pakistani and American intelligence officers.

According to the data in Yousef's computer, and later revealed during his trial, 11 jetliners, all belonging to U.S. airlines and all traveling between Asia and the United States, were to be targeted over a two-day period in January 1995. A team of operatives would carry aboard small but powerful explosive devices separated into various, seemingly innocuous components. Called "microbombs," the devices would employ Casio watches for timers and chemical stabilizers that resembled cotton balls. A pair of 9-volt batteries would provide power to detonators fashioned from light bulb filaments. The key explosive was a virtually undetectable form of liquid nitroglycerin. After assembly during flight, the bomb would be placed beneath the chair cushion, concealed by the underseat life preserver.

Each of the 11 chosen targets was a two-leg flight. The conspirators planned to disembark upon landing, with the bombs set to detonate hours later, after the planes were once again aloft. If successful, more than 3,000 people could have been killed.

All of this happened more than 11 years ago, providing more than ample notice that such a scheme was possible. Yet following revelations that a copycat Bojinka scheme was well under way in Britain, we're suddenly in a state of full-blown panic.

Based on what we know thus far, government investigators ought to be commended for unraveling this deadly scheme in time. Predictably and tragically, however, airports have been thrown into chaos not seen since the days just after Sept. 11. European and American security agencies have slammed down a sudden gantlet of restrictions resulting in massive delays and grave inconvenience for millions of passengers. An already devastated airline industry, along with countless of its customers, are once again going to suffer mightily.

There is no reason it has to be this way -- though few of us who've been writing about airport security issues over the past few years are terribly surprised. Half a decade after Sept. 11, having spent billions to upgrade air security, we're still needlessly obsessed with hobby knives and silverware, trying to thwart an attack that already happened and is all but certain never to happen again.

Is it any wonder that the specter of liquid explosives, the possibilities of which have been known to authorities for many years, should inspire a whole new round of reactionary panic and waste? It's too early, maybe, to be so cynical, but some of us have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were, ever since Richard Reid's would-be sneaker bomb commenced the silly and apparently never-to-end X-raying of footwear at airports across America. I presume the new security paradigm will call for the permanent banning of toothpaste, shampoo and drinking water.

What we need to get through our terror-addled heads is this: It has been, and it will always be, relatively easy to smuggle a potentially deadly weapon onto an aircraft.

The easily concealable components of the Bojinka microbombs demonstrate the futility of trying to root out every possible terror tool. Knives can be improvised from almost anything. The same for bombs, flammable materials, and other instruments of destruction, large or small.
More than once in this magazine I've discussed the forgotten lessons of Bojinka. In laying out other fiendish scenarios, I once raised the possibility of terrorists sewing explosives into the living bodies of pets, which could then be shipped in a plane's cargo hold. The point was never to be gruesome but, rather, to illustrate the limitless tools saboteurs will always have at their disposal.

Ultimately, protecting commercial aircraft from terrorism is not the job of airport security, it's a job for police departments, federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The apparent plot at Heathrow Airport was not unraveled by the keen eye of a concourse screener; it was unraveled through careful investigation behind the scenes. By the time any attacker makes it to the metal detector, chances are it's already too late. There are too many ways to outwit that final line of defense.

No matter, here we go initiating yet another absurd crackdown to the detriment of millions of innocent travelers. Just as confiscating corkscrews didn't make us safer after Sept. 11, so banning liquids isn't going to make us safer now. All the while, the true weapon of mass destruction is the imagination and resilience of those who wish to harm us -- a fact we continue to ignore at our own peril.


* * * * * *

Epilogue: Despite our administration's repeated assertion that the events of Sept. 11 were a complete surprise, the Bojinka plot was in fact a three-pronged scheme that included the possibility of using hijacked jetliners against several American landmarks and skyscrapers.

Today, Ramzi Yousef is incarcerated in a Colorado prison. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in U.S. government custody, his exact whereabouts a secret. Riduan Isamuddin, aka Hambali, is imprisoned in Jordan. He was implicated in the 2002 Bali, Indonesia, nightclub bombing. Osama bin Laden is at large.

 

[MaxFisher]

Sure, being ironic gains you much further credibility.

And Bush gained his animosity. And his 30% popularity ratings.

I don't need credibility. The US, British, and Pakastani intelligence is on my side. The burden of proof falls on you to prove there is a world wide conspiracy at work.