Monday, October 20, 2003

Deadly Weapons: There has been this obsession with box cutters since 9/11. We can't even carry toenail clippers onto commercial airplanes anymore.

But a sharpened piece of plastic would easily go undetected, and would be just as deadly. The airlines still provide cups made of glass to first-class passengers. Shatter one end, and that becomes a weapon.

Now some kid claims that there are gaps in security because he could sneak boxcutters onboard.

Truth is, nobody could actually hijack a plane with such devices anymore. The only reason they worked on 9/11 is because the public was conditioned to believe that if we cooperated with the hijackers, everything would be all right. And before 9/11, that was usually the case. The hijackers would fly the plane somewhere, conduct negotiations, and then get captured.

The 9/11 hijackers knew this and took advantage of the system to create weapons from our complaisance. But as the terror strikes took place, and Americans realized that a war was going on, passengers on Flight 93 got the news through their cell phones and were the first to fight back. They succeeded in making the plane crash in a Pennsylvania field instead of a populated landmark in Washington, DC.

If hijackers tried to take a plane over with boxcutters again, the passengers on board would mob them. We need to think past boxcutters and figure out what the terrorists will do next -- they're always one step ahead of us.