If everything I’ve read turns out to be true, we just dodged a major bullet with the discovery of the British/Pakistani terror cell. Now, as was the case with shoe bomber Richard Reed, security at airports will be adjusted.
We need to be safe when we fly. No one questions that. What I question is how we go about it.
Is there anyone, even the TSA, who seriously thinks banning liquids from flights will eliminate the chance of liquid based explosives getting on board? I’m not going to enumerate them here, but I can think of a number of ways these liquids could still get on… and I’m neither evil nor crafty.
The real point is, liquids in the cabin are only one of dozens, maybe hundreds, of threats available to terrorists. They have the distinct advantage of being on offense with the ability to call audibles at the line of scrimmage.
Actually, the football analogy works, if you’re old enough to remember Bill Cosby’s 40+ year old “Toss of the Coin” routine.
“General Washington of the Continental Army, this is General Cornwallis of the British.”
“If you’d shake hands, gentlemen.”
“O.K., British call the toss.”
“British called heads, it is tails.”
“General Washington, what are you gonna do?”
“General Washington says his troops will dress however they wish, in any color, in buckskins and coonskin caps, and hide behind the rocks and trees and shoot out at random.”
“British, you will all wear bright red, all shoot at the same time, and march forward in a straight line.”
We’ve known about liquid explosives for a long time and our intelligence community probably knows more I won’t find out about until the next time someone’s arrested… or not.
Here’s what I’m getting at. We are no safer with me taking off my shoes and leaving my Dunkin’ Donuts coffee (cream and one Splenda, please) in the terminal. Does it make sense to use valuable time and equipment to thoroughly screen my parents when they fly?
Everyone seems to understand my parents aren’t going to blow up a plane, except the TSA. How can that be?
While we are reactionary and regimented in our security methods, those who wish us harm are fleet of foot.
There has to be something more effective and efficient than what we’re doing now.