(Long Island, NY) “Sorry, Sir,” the man at the airport said with a frown, “but you can’t take that on the plane.” I’d only had one sip of my coffee, but rules were rules. “Recent incidents make it necessary to have everybody dispose of all liquid before getting on board.” I tried to gulp down more of my life-giving coffee before giving it up. “There it goes,” I thought, “my freedom to need a bathroom trip three times during a two hour flight.” Damn these terrorists!
I was coming back from a few weeks off—you might have noticed that I haven’t written much in a while. I had to get away for a few weeks and clear my head, but now that I am back, you can expect more output in this space. Little did I know that when I came back I’d be getting all this fodder for the column, starting with the latest terror news regarding airline travel. All these restrictions, my coffee thrown in the trash, and who knows what kind of insanity to come?
Of course, later on, many of the latest round of airline restrictions were relaxed over time and things crept back to something resembling normal. I remember hearing the breaking news where reporters breathlessly announced that yet another terror plot had been thwarted—the one that involved bringing explosives on board disguised as sports drinks and other items. I was a sap, and believed every word.
Once I found out that the going theory was that this was not an actual attempt to blow up airplanes, but rather a “dry run” or test run to see if it were possible, I was angry with myself for thinking that these reporters knew for one second what was really going on.
See, kids, they teach you in the military that terror cells often conduct these dry runs. The reasons are varied, but much of the time it involves a test to see what the response will be. The dry run is usually not intended to be a full-scale assault; it’s to determine what exactly would happen in the event that one was carried out.
This is what is so irritating about the press when these situations go down. Not only do they get it wrong in the crucial early hours of the situation, but they fail to realize their role in the system. The incident went down, the press over-reacted, and the public recoiled in horror. Terrorists tried to blow up the planes!
Then, of course, the theories of dry runs came up, but to confuse the issue, those martyrdom tapes were discovered, making everything much less black and white than ever. Was it a dry run? Was it real? I buried my head in the sand after hearing the “dry run” theories, and was shocked to hear of the martyrdom tapes. What is going on?
Most likely, disinformation on a massive scale, by the terrorists. They planted just enough doubt around that we may never know what the real story was. Then again, I quit following the news and maybe it was all sewn up nice and tight now and I look like a complete boob for even ranting about the whole mess. I really don’t know.
What I DO know is that now, thanks to the incidents in question, the terrorists, wherever they may be hunkered down, know EXACTLY how we shall react to such a situation in the future. It’s all there for them to analyze and ponder over. They can look at all the press coverage, official reactions, and police activity the way the NFL football coaches watch game footage to study the opposing team’s strengths and weaknesses.
This wouldn’t disturb me so much, except for one little detail; the terror planners know now, after years of experience since 9/11, that western airport security is very reactionary, doesn’t last very long in ‘crisis mode’, and tends to get more lax as more and more time passes between incidents.
The real way to secure an airport is to institute completely arbitrary, draconian measures about what can go on board and what cannot, and leave them in place. FOREVER. If you don’t pass the security check, you don’t fly. If your tickets aren’t legit, you don’t fly. No passport? Ditto. Your name is on the watch list? Ditto. Your papers aren’t in order? Sorry.
Unfortunately, we westerners can’t live with measures like that without feeling like we’ve inherited a Stalin-style military dictatorship, but with air travel as vulnerable as it is, it’s entirely possible that we’ll never be safe unless some kind of strict security which never changes is instituted. We don’t need to –and shouldn’t– filter this down to all of society, but in an airport, it may just be the most appropriate measure. The terrorists aren’t giving up. What are WE doing?
