Defend Truth

Politics

Terrorist tries to explode Detroit plane; global security suffers

Terrorist tries to explode Detroit plane; global security suffers

Like the shoe bomber and the liquid bombers before him, the man who tried to blow up a plane on its approach to Detroit on Christmas day failed in his purpose. But he did do his part in further screwing up the political approach to security.

It starts bad and gets worse. The Northwest Airlines plane involved departed from Amsterdam, where security equipment and personnel aren’t lacking. Early leaks from American law enforcement say that a dry powder was involved in the (spectacularly unsuccessful) explosive mixture that was concocted aboard the plane itself. And the man responsible, identified as Nigerian citizen Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, apparently appears in one of those databases of potential future terrorists.

Photo: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspect in the Detroit bound Delta Airlines plane on Christmas day, is shown in this undated photograph released to Reuters on December 26, 2009. U.S. authorities on Saturday charged Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian man, with trying to blow up U.S. passenger jet Northwest flight 253 with high explosives and were investigating his claim that he had links to al Qaeda. REUTERS

These facts will be used to justify several counter-productive security strategies, among them the ritual and increasingly farcical theatre performance at airport checkpoints, and the compilation of long, supposedly authoritative lists of people considered too dangerous to allow on an aircraft but not dangerous enough to arrest or even surveil.

The more such systems and processes are introduced, the more experts point out their futility.

“…we confiscate liquids, screen shoes, and ban box cutters on airplanes,” security analyst Bruce Schneier wrote in the November issue of the New Internationalist, continuing a longstanding theme of his. “But it’s not the target and tactics of the last attack that are important, but the next attack… If we concentrate airport security on screening shoes and confiscating liquids, and the terrorists hide explosives in their brassieres and use solids, we’ve wasted our money.”

Abdulmutallab proved the current approach to be wrong, but he’ll be the poster boy for its continuation. The Obama administration has proven itself unable to break free of the security theatre demanded by a frightened population, but has showed itself downright enthusiastic in continuing to impose its strategies on the rest of the world. We’d better hope the terrorists don’t ever get their act together.

On the weekend the first reports emerged on just how passengers will be inconvenienced by knee-jerk reactions. Some airlines said they had been told passengers had to keep to their seats and make sure their hands are visible for the last hour of a flight due to land in the US. That means no trips to the loo, no laptops, no folded-down tray tables. Fun times.

Read more: BBC, Islam Online, Schneier.com, AP

Main photo: Northwest Airlines Flight 253 sits on the tarmac at Detroit Metro Airport December 27, 2009 in this video grab provided by WDIV-TV in Detroit.

Gallery

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.