|
There has
been little in the news since Christmas
Day, other than the “alleged” attempt by
the 23 yr-old Nigerian student,
Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab, to blow up the airplane
in which he was a passenger, as it
approached Detroit on a flight from
Amsterdam. Fortunately, this latest
terrorist suspect was inept and
succeeded only in burning his leg before
being overpowered by another passenger.
There is more than a
little similarity between this event and
that of the so-called “Shoe Bomber,” on
December 22, 2001. If you recall, a
London-born Muslim convert, Richard Reid
(no relation to the Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid, but possibly just as
destructive) failed in an attempt to
ignite a bomb hidden in his shoe on a
flight from Paris to Miami. He is
currently serving a life sentence in
prison. Both the miscreants were living
in London and both men are Muslims and
were in some way connected with
al-Qaeda. On the other hand, Reid was a
street criminal who converted to Islam
while in prison; Abdulmutallab is an
engineering student and the son of a
wealthy former banking official in
Nigeria.
Eventually, despite all
our security efforts, someone is going
to get lucky and destroy an aircraft
full of innocent people. One thing that
makes that possibility real is due to
political correctness. We have become
averse to profiling and we’re afraid to
offend anyone—Arabs, Muslims, favored
minorities.
As Mitch Albom wrote in
the Detroit Free Press, “We can
start with the fact that airplane
security is still largely a joke. Anyone
in the business will tell you there are
machines out there that we aren't using,
technology that can detect explosive
substances, powders, liquids. Why aren't
they widespread? Take a guess. Money.
Business.
There are higher-quality
methods that our Transportation Security
Administration isn't using. Questioning.
Profiling. Eye contact. The kind of
stuff you go through for every flight in
places such as Israel. Why aren't we
doing that? Take a guess. Money.
Political correctness.
And, of course, even if
we do our job perfectly in the United
States, we can't enforce the
thoroughness of the country in which a
terrorist might board.
I don't know when the
next incident will happen -- I pray it
never does -- but I can promise you
this. The first questions will begin
with ‘How could ...’ As in, ‘How could a
guy on a no-fly list get on a plane?’
Or, ‘How could a device like that get
through security?’
The fact is, for all the
agencies, information, techniques and
personnel to link together perfectly for
every potential passenger -- well, it's
impossible. Something is going to screw
up. Someone is going to skip a step.
And something,
eventually, will go boom.”
What, in
the meantime, we can expect is more of
the same. After Reid’s attempt, domestic
passengers were required to remove their
shoes during pre-flight security
screening and all sorts of restrictions
on liquids were imposed. There have been
no instances of two-year olds found with
explosives in their juice bottles and no
85-year old great-grannies have been
discovered with explosives in their
shoes. Apparently, no terrorists have
tried the same trick as Reid again
either.
Since
Abdulmutallab had
explosives sewn into either his pants or
his drawers, it’s likely that future
passengers will be required to remove
their pants and underwear prior to
boarding.
It’s possible that
al-Qaeda isn’t really trying to blow up
airplanes, but instead are laughing at
all the trouble they are causing
everyone who needs to fly somewhere. For
me, if it’s too far to drive, then I’m
not going.
|
