this
op-ed in the latimes (by authors
susan and joseph trento) proves that some of the multi-millionaire media aren't gullible syncophants ready to swallow the administration's bs, specifically about this week's "terra in the skies":
as usual when it comes to homeland security, the authorities are way behind the curve.
it's infuriating. during the mid-1990s, the u.s. took into custody two kuwaiti men who had devised the technical plan for operation bojinka -- the name for a plan to blow up a large number of jumbo jets over the pacific. in a test, the perpetrators in 1994 blew up an unsuspecting japanese businessman in his seat on a philippine domestic flight by wiring a device using a watch and liquid explosive disguised in a contact-lens case. this proved to the terrorists that they could get explosives aboard undetected.
= more after the jump =
thanks to philippine intelligence, the u.s. eventually arrested the two terrorists, abdul hakim murad and ramzi ahmed yousef. the two told the cia about bin laden's plans to knock down big buildings using planes and blow up airliners using small chemical bombs. that was in 1995. (yousef was later convicted in the u.s. for the 1993 bombing of the world trade center.)
the trentos go on to chastize awol for the "dog and pony show" this week highlighting the extra secuirty precautions and level red alert set up after the british foiled a plot to blow up planes with liquid explosives.
it was business as usual for the tsa: give passengers and the public the illusion of security but not the reality. one tsa official -- disgusted with the agency's standard practice of putting on a strong show of security at the passenger screening checkpoints while ignoring yawning holes in security elsewhere in the civil aviation system -- has referred to it as "just more eye candy ... feel-good stuff."
after spending $20 billion on aviation security, we still have not developed a defense against ideas terrorists had six years before 9/11. it doesn't require a genius to figure out that terrorists might try a version of operation bojinka again.
there was a sense of absolute panic in the tsa's announcement that liquids would not be permitted on airplanes. yet security experts have been recommending for years that carry-on baggage be strictly limited. in 2001, the tsa did ban matches, box cutters and small knives. then, in december, it started allowing them again. though chastised in the report by the independent 9/11 commission for failing to act on information already in hand, the tsa has never forbidden the types of liquids it is now temporarily banning, even though it was fully aware of the bojinka effort and al qaeda and bin laden's penchant for going after targets until he succeeds in bringing them down.
we would venture to say that the trento's book "unsafe at any altiude" looks like must-reading. the random house page for the book tells us:
we may be less safe flying today than we were before 9/11, and we have spent billions of dollars in tax money going backward. unsafe at any altitude goes behind the scenes at our nation's airports and penetrates the government to paint a picture of a transportation security administration that is remarkably inept, and reveals the great lengths that u.s. carriers and their lobbyists have gone in order to make certain that serious airline security has not been instituted in this country. susan and joseph trento also trace the evolution of security failures along a continuum that led directly to 9/11: the hijackings of passenger jets to cuba decades ago, iran- contra, hezbollah's bombing of the u.s. marine barracks in beirut, its hijacking of twa flight 847, the pan am flight 103 lockerbie tragedy. these and numerous other episodes exposed vulnerabilities in our nation's policies and practices that we failed to heed.
9/11 has resulted in the creation of massive new law enforcement bureaucracies and programs, and a sense of vigilance has certainly arisen among the american public. the trentos' disturbing investigation reveals, however, that many key aspects of what went wrong on 9/11 have never been carefully examined, rendering meaningful reform impossible. for instance, the tsa was created to replace the low-wage private screeners who once guarded our airports. but no investigative body, including the 9/11 commission, has ever concluded that the private screening firms contributed to 9/11 by failing to do their jobs, and this book reveals for the first time the breathtaking story of the bush administration's concerted effort to deflect blame onto those private companies. inspired by the belief that true vigilance is impossible without an honestly informed citizenry, unsafe at any altitude shines the bright light of truth on past and present practices that have remained in the dark for far too long.