Airplane Security Theater

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Question: is the most intelligent response to foiled terrorist attacks to delibrately throw a wrench in our own air transportation system? What if every time someone committed a crime with a car, we put roadblocks on every single Interstate highway?

Disclaimer: I'm pissed because I want to fly today.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Bigger question: is it just a coincidence that these arrests occured the day after Cheney & fellow Repubs declared that Liberman's loss was (more or less) a victroy for terrorists?

I'm not implying that Blair takes orders from the RNC or that this was a manufactured evet, but the timing is just too perfect.

I'm sure the US & UK share intel on these matters. Maybe the White House caught wind that arrests would be imminent and decided to use the event to their political advantage. ABC News has reported that a "fundraising appeal mentioning the war on terror hours after British authorities disclosed they had disrupted a plot to blow up aircraft headed to the United States." A low-level staffer was blamed, of course.
Maybe I'm just too cynical.
2:12 AM, August 12, 2006
Anonymous said…
Well, also the rather simplistic way they do the "If terrorists use X, then X shall be banned" system. I mean, this time they claimed they were just trying to stop copycats... seems like a lot fewer wannabe terrorists would even know about this plot to copy it if they didn't broadcast it to every airtraveler this way.
5:32 PM, August 14, 2006
Zachary Drake said…
I don't think you're too cynical anonymous, or if you are you have a lot of company in the lefty blogosphere. Thanks for stopping by.
10:52 PM, August 14, 2006
Zachary Drake said…
Yes, Mad Latinist, I agree the responses are simplistic, and may disseminate ideas to would-be copycats. But the authorities feel they must do something, so they put on a show. Why do we require our national security responses to be entertaining? We'd be much safer if we kept theater in the theaters (and of course I'd get more work).
10:57 PM, August 14, 2006
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