Annie Jacobsen - Terror in the Skies

I received an email from Shabnan Rezaei, Editor-In-Chief for PersianMirror, a Persian/Iranian culture and wedding guide/business directory. In this article, Sara Sefeed describes her encounter with airport security (while traveling with a male colleague of Indian ethnicity). The incompetence and unprofessional (dare I say "socially retarded") treatment she received at the hands of airport screeners is a glaring example of what's wrong with the system. Not only did her friend have to practically undergo a cavity search, but few of the screeners spoke a lick of English. Sara, I "feel your pain" (as an impeached president once said). My wife (who is JAPANESE) has had that hand-held want stuck in her crack more times than (well, I'll leave that up to your imagination). And here's an excellent article by Kim DuToit, in which he describes his trip with his family to/from Germany. I believe the term he uses for airport screeners is "Ridge's Retards." I think we're all on the same page when describing the ineptitude of giving Esse a security clearance and a badge.

However, I must take exception with a couple of things in the PersianMirror article. First of all, it seems to (and this could just be my white paranoia) imply that the attack on the Pentagon was OK, saying that the WTC was an "innocent" point (because there are so many foreigners there, and nobody in the building made US Foreign Policy decisions). While I certainly agree that (technically speaking) the Pentagon is a legitimate target in a time of war, the weapon al Qaeda used to attack it (hijaked civilian airliners) is NOT a legitimate weapon. If AQ wanted to build an airplane (yeah, right) and try to fly it to the States and attack us, let them try.

The article also featured that GD annoying Benetton ad showing a naked white 2-year-old embracing a naked black 2-year-old. I've always hated Benetton and this picture is one of the worst. Why? For starters, the boy and girl are naked (and embracing in a way I've never seen my two-year-old embrace somebody). Those Eurotrashers have a thing for the kiddie porn (something we "Puritans" in America find hard to stomach). Secondly, the black kid has his hair cut to look like devil horns. What is the purpose of that? And who could forget the Benetton ads of yesteryear, when they portrayed death row inmates as little innocent puppy-dog-eyed victims of the big bad "system?" God, I hate Benetton. What the hell is.... OK, I've pulled the topic way off course now.

Getting back to airline security. It is well known that Al Qaeda is doing "test runs" on airlines, probing for weaknesses (and we have plenty). The biggest weakness is called "Norm Mineta." His phobia of any form of profiling makes him unfit to serve as Transportation Secretary. Racial profiling may be ineffective at this point, but I'd be interested in "Religious profiling." As I understand it, boarding passes are now issued with certain codes on them which indicate if someone is on a terrorism watch list. This is a good start, but we've got a long way to go.

Finally, this week marks the debut of columnist Heather Wilhelm's website and weblog. She already has some interesting articles up about the airline security situation. In one article, she details how Nour Mehana sang songs of praise about Palestinian suicide bombers. In another, she talks about a second (third) passenger on Annie Jacobsen's flight coming forward to say that Nour Mehana's backup band was acting in such a disturbing manner, she thought she was going to die. She also has an email from an ex-flight attendant (who quit this year after seeing one too many "dry runs" for a hijacking with little being done to prevent it). Here's Heather Wilhelm's excellent website (and I'm not just sucking up to her because she's cute... even though she is).