gingerandjohn.com

I wanted to expand a little more about the "Terror in the Skies: Again?" link I mentioned here. I did read the article again, and it was even more chilling the second time around. But first, a little background: I believe in logical approaches. I believe that people are generally good, and deserve the benefit of the doubt. I also belive that this qualifies me, in common parlance, as a "sucker". Another belief is my total abhorrence of racism, not from being a sucker, but from being a white Southern male.

So let's approach these Pakistani musicians and their actions in a logical, benefit-of-the-doubt way. First, the consecutive use of the bathrooms by everyone in the group. Perhaps the last communal meal they ate, before coming to the airport, had some bad hummus; maybe they had Norte Americano version of Montezuma's Revenge. The thumbs-up from McDonald's bag-man meant "I feel much better now". Perhaps bag-man also got rid of his super-size fries, since his buddy told him they were cooked in pork fat, and perhaps he gave the burger to one of his less-affected friends.

Standing up? Moving around in the plane? Perhaps that's more accepted on Pakistani Air. Perhaps they had a long bus ride to the airport, and didn't want to sit for 4 1/2 additional hours.

The cold look to the writer by the man in yellow is easy. He obviously speaks English, and perhaps he overheard yet another a remark on the lines of "damn towelheads", and perhaps that had been an all too common occurence on his trip.

You know what? I'm tired of this exercise, and I'm tired of trying to rationalize this bizarre behavior. You know what my next excuse was going to be? "Maybe the 'No', and the finger across the neck was 'Don't go in there, man, it's rank!" Sorry, I have to call bullshit, because I'll tell you something else about me: I'm a cynical, paranoid man who believes in Occam's Razor, commonly expressed as "if it walks like duck, it's probably a duck, no matter what it sounds like". That's logical.

And Occam's Razor tells me that in the light of normal behavior, even accounting for cultural differences, I see two explanations: these guys were messing with everyone's head, or they were building weapons in the bathrooms. And again, that's with the benefit of the doubt. Logically, there were bombs in the bathrooms.

This incident should not have happened. It's as black-and-white as that, in a world that's most emphatically gray, George W. Bush's views notwithstanding. But it has happened, and how do we prevent it from happening again? What about having security at each and every gate? Forget about entry to the terminal, put a freaking detector and a trained person at each gate. To get on a plane, you've got to go through security. If the problems are on the plane, why do we think that protecting the terminal is the answer?

Writing this, I looked back at the site where I found the original article. I am way out of circulation: this story is huge. Time Magazine, NPR, MSNBC are just a few of the major outlets. There's a letter from the e-ditor that references thirty other coverages of the story, and there are four follow-ons to the original article:
* Part 2
* Part 3
* Part 4
* Part 5

The author (Annie Jacobsen) has spoken to the House Judiciary Committe on the matter. She has also spoken to the Syrian ambassador to the US (who called her paranoid and racist, and who hung up on her), and Dave Adams, the Federal Air Marshall Services Head of Public Affairs, as well as many others. The story is compelling, to say the least.

The feeling I am getting from this story (and the hints that this isn't an isolated incident) is primarily of patronization. I have always felt like members of the Bush administration (particularly Bush and Rumsfield) speak to me as if I'm a little kid, and shouldn't worry about matters I don't understand. But I'm not a kid. I can make good choices, if I have enough information.

The war on terror needs some common sense. Why are we still worried about box cutters, but not car keys? Why are we not checking visa expiration dates? Why are we addressing the effects instead of the cause? I think it's because it's a perception of action by the administration, which isn't working.

I may have to fly to Minneapolis soon, then to Calgary soon after that. I may not take non-stops.

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