I know this is going to come as a galloping shock, but it turns out that our commercial air travel is still vulnerable to terrorism:
U.S. aviationremains vulnerable to attack and groups such as al Qaeda may try totarget non-commercial planes and helicopters, the New York Timesreported, citing a confidential government report.
The report by the FBI and the Departmentof Homeland Security says the aviation industry is a tempting targetfor acts of terrorism due to the spectacular nature of such attacks,the Times said on Monday.
My first instinct here was toattack Bush. And he certainly deserves attack. He’s failed to do abouta million simple things you could do to make air travel safer, such asrectifying John Kerry’s much-ballyhooed accusation that we only checkabout 2% of cargo containers civilians get onto aircraft, and their luggage is X-rayed, but the cargo hold is not.
But then, another thought occurred to me: Of course we’re still vulnerable to terror.What else would we be? Is it even conceivable that the committee wouldissue a report declaring our invulnerability to terror? "Take theterror alert thing down to blue, Jim! We’re safe!" Terrorism has beenaround since the 11th century. I’m all for being the safestwe can be, but does anyone really think we’re going to eradicate thephenomenon with better customs screening?
This is the biggest problem with Bush’s anti-terror strategy. It’snot that it won’t stop terrorism; it’s that the stated goal is to stop terrorism.He has embarked us, effectively, on a neverending war with animpossible goal. This is why I actually liked Kerry’s "nuisance" line.He acknowledged that maximal safety was important, but realized thatfailing to acknowledge the reality of terrorism would just leaveAmericans scared all the time by ominous committee reports like thisone, without any meaningful benefit. Of course, Kerry wasn’t the onewhose election required a sizeable chunk of the electorate to beconstantly terrified.
