Getting beyond our airport security obsession

[alarimer]

Aug. 10, 2006 | Terrorists intend to destroy several jumbo jets over the ocean using liquid explosives smuggled aboard in carry-on luggage. The plot is foiled in the nick of time by authorities.

August 2006? No, it's 1994, and the sinister plan, nicknamed "Oplan Bojinka," is under the direction of Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a pair of terrorist conspirators hiding out in Manila, Philippines. Khalid would later lead the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Yousef was already responsible for having organized the World Trade Center prelude bombing in 1993.

Oplan Bojinka is Arabic slang for "Operation Big Bang." It is funded by a renegade Saudi named Osama bin Laden and Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesian operative who goes by the name Hambali.

Yousef grew up in Kuwait and became a master mixer of hard-to-detect liquid incendiaries. At one point he completed a successful Bojinka test run onboard a Philippine Airlines 747, killing a Japanese businessman with a small underseat explosion. Yousef himself, traveling with a forged Italian passport, smuggled the necessary components onto the airplane, including nitroglycerin hidden inside a converted bottle of contact lens solution.


more here:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/08/10/bomb/


Patrick Smith makes some very good points. I thought it was worth its own thread. I don't even remember the plot from 1994, that's how little we freaked out over it. Or perhaps there was not this "all fear all the time" from the news media. Regular law enforcement was able to stop this plot. There was no TSA, no DHS. And the administration did not use it to bolster their ratings or to influence elections, which the Bush administration is sure to do.

[megatherium]

1. I think the big psychological change was because Operation

Bojinka didn't succeed, but 9/11 did succeed, with horrific results. Of course, that doesn't justify political exploitation of fear, nor does it address whether the TSA is needed.

[alarimer]

2. That's true

I did think that he made some other good points. Not allowing nail files while leaving most baggage and cargo completely unchecked. It makes no sense.

[megatherium]

3. What freaked me out was confiscating nail files,

but allowing cigarette lighters (which they finally did bar).