Terrorism, tweezers and terminal madness

Some thoughts about the absurdity of too much security. An excerpt from "Ask the Pilot: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel."

By Patrick Smith

Jun 1, 2004 | On a Sunday morning I'm catching Malaysia Airlines flight MH091 from Newark to Dubai, and eventually onward to Kuala Lumpur. Newark, now cloyingly recast as Liberty International Airport, is forever the same old bowl of concrete and cars. In a cheerless restaurant in Terminal B I'm eating breakfast beneath framed pictures of sandwiches when the Malaysia crew comes promenading past, headed for their Boeing 777 at the end of the concourse -- the pilots in sharply cut, military-style suits, the stewards in green tuxedoes, the girls in sarong-style dresses of melon and teal.

At the surrounding tables are the rest of Flight 91's eventual occupants, and present company excluded it's a substantially... let's just say Eastern-looking lot -- A mix of Arab and Malay and Indian, with a liberal distribution of skullcaps and prayer beads, and a handful of women in full black burqa right down to the gloves. It's all very glammy and international here in decidedly working class Newark. I like it, even if it's probably a disconcerting sight for the throngs headed to Detroit and Charlotte, with enough dark skin and beards to keep many Americans away from airports forever and hunkered down in their xenophobic hidey-holes. And while I hate saying it, something tells me MH091 gives a thrice-weekly dose of the willies to the already edgy screeners down at security...

After standing in queue for fifteen minutes I approach the metal detectors, where a screener greets me good morning. She is wearing paramilitary-style uniform complete with shoulder braids, combat boots and a beret. Across her back it says SECURITY in heavy gold lettering. This is supposed to look and feel like the ordered confidence you'd encounter in Europe or Asia. But the too-sharp creases in the pantlegs, the snapping gum and the glossy lipstick, all expose the phoniness and desperation of the scene. These aren't even the trappings of a third world state -- something you'd see at the airport in Quito or Entebbe. They're a carnival imitation of those places, with uniforms straight from an old Monty Python wardrobe.

A fork, part of my normal carry-on inventory for years, is confiscated from my luggage. In a few days that fork, along with thousands of other expropriated bits of metal, will be hauled off in a sealed bin by the local fire department. Reminded that forks are still dispensed with inflight meals, the screener replies tersely, "That's what they want us to do."

Nearby a National Guardsman is flirting with a group of teenagers. Troopers are cracking jokes, bags are toppling from the belt. "Take your shoes off please." I'm ashamed and embarrassed. Is this the new world of flying?

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Our zero-tolerance policy toward the carriage of weapons -- perceived or real -- has turned the predeparture process into a pageant of humiliation. Airports have become scrap-metal repositories, while thousands of people are asked to remove their shoes because one man, on one occasion, had the idea of concealing explosives in his sneakers. At the risk of sounding flip, are strip-searches to follow? After all, even the stupidest terrorist will see that sneakers are out, and what more fiendish than a bomb in your underwear?

I've heard people recount, "I was not allowed to carry through my coffee without tasting it first. But what if I'd simply filled my shampoo bottle full of gasoline?" The ironies and examples are endless: A shattered wine bottle is just as sharp as a boxcutter; a shiv of snapped-off plastic no less lethal than a knife. And so forth.

The preoccupation with Weapons of Mass Distraction gets back to a stubborn fixation with the September 11th template, assuming any sequel is bound to unfurl around a do-it-yourself arsenal similar to that used by the original 19 skyjackers. Terrorists, the intercepted messages and payrolled tipsters inform us, are again targeting airliners. But while I don't know exactly what an al-Qaida operative might have in store, I'm skeptical of one thing, which is the likelihood of another suicide skyjacking. The skyjack model, it's critical to note, is forever changed, as never again will anybody believe a purloined plane is headed to Havana, Beirut, or anywhere but into the side of a building. I can't imagine anybody making it two steps up the aisle, to say nothing of into the cockpit, with less than a bucket of pinless grenades balanced on his head.

If anything, the ongoing nonsense underscores our vulnerability by flaunting our refusal to behave rationally. One is reminded of the movie "Brazil," Terry Gilliam's 1985 film about a totalitarian state under constant barrage of terrorist bombings, brought to the brink of collapse and hilarity by its own foolish, hyperextended authority. Just imagine a platoon of firefighters carting away a locked container of forks, tweezers and hobby knives.

Next Page: The tool of terrorist choice was surprise, not box cutters

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