Terror attack foiled on Northwest Airlines flight

[DGuller]

No, you are confusing means with ends. Nobody engages in any kind of war with the strategic goal of making life complicated for the enemy.

My bad, I meant warfare, not war.

[Berkut]

As far the question of costs, appart from the intangible indignities of having all those security checks, there is also a basic cost of time.  The more security checks there are, the more time you have to spend in the airport. 

Take hundreds of millions of passengers, multiply it by a couple of hours, multiply it by their cost of time, and pretty soon you're talking real money.  This is just talking about specific costs of airline security, and not the more general costs of conducting the "War on Terror".

Fair enough, but it sounds pretty vague to me.

No question that security is expensive, but I don't think the goals of AQ are really to make flying more expensive either - again, why lower the bar for their success so far?

And even with that cost, the price of an airline ticket has not appreciably risen as a result. It *has* risen some, but not enough to make air travel any less desirable for most people.

[Razgovory]

No, you are confusing means with ends. Nobody engages in any kind of war with the strategic goal of making life complicated for the enemy.

My bad, I meant warfare, not war.

Still a Guerrilla group like Hezbollah is not interested in trying to cause some sort of social change in Israel.  They desire nothing less then the destruction or expulsion of the inhabitants of the area.  Since they can't occupy Israel and commit genocide they must satisfy themselves with killing them through bombings and rocket attacks.  Al-Qaida operates the same way which is why they are so interested in spectacular high casualties attacks.  Compare this to the Marxist groups who operated in Europe during the Cold War.  These groups showed less interest in killing people (and some would warn before hand to prevent killing) as demonstrating that their governments could not protect them.  Perhaps guerrilla warfare is poor example.  Maybe genocide at a distance would be better.

[Sheilbh]

I think people grossly exaggerate how horrific increased security measures really are. The reality is that you still go pay some price for a ticket, and that price is almost completely driven by economic realities having nothing to do with security, like fuel costs and such. You go to the airport, get on a plane, and it flies you where you want to go. Nothing has really changed in any fundamental way.

It's not the price.  It's the irritation that I think people object to, because I think it just comes across as ridiculous to so many people.  For example the current desire to stop the maps in case they allow terrorists to target their explosives is just silly and that's what people think.  It's like over-officious local government, irritating because of pettiness and silliness (similarly the no drinks rule).

I think CdM's article is right.  The most important change in security is that passengers will now react in a way they wouldn't have done prior to 9/11.  I also think individual vigilance after 9/11 is also a far more important change in terms of security than, say, not allowing people to have something on their lap ever will be. 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Travelling is going to keep getting worse and worse.

Here are the New Safety Rules currently in place on all inbound US flights, and more than likely in destinations as well.

1. A Single small piece of carry-on.

2. Intimate pat-downs, hand searches, checking clothing seams.

3. Passengers must stay seated during the last hour of the flight and must have nothing in their laps.

4. Flight paths will no longer be shown on aircraft monitors ( )

5. Some airlines are adopting even stricter measures like giving passengers a crew escort when they go to the bathroom and keeping cabin lights turned up high.

All these options really make me want to fly to the States immediately.

nice, punishing travellers because officials are incompetent. His own dad informed on him for crying out loud!

[Josephus]

By the way, it's gonna be a total bitch for me to fly back, they already did all that new stuff to me when I left. I'll probably literally be strip searched next time, I'm gonna have to get there four hours early.

According to Berkut, it's not a big deal at all.

Toronto int'l airport is experiencing 8 hour delays for people flying to the USA.

[Syt]

By the way, it's gonna be a total bitch for me to fly back, they already did all that new stuff to me when I left. I'll probably literally be strip searched next time, I'm gonna have to get there four hours early.

According to Berkut, it's not a big deal at all.

Yeah, Tim, why do you hate the U.S. of A.?

[Josephus]

And even with that cost, the price of an airline ticket has not appreciably risen as a result. It *has* risen some, but not enough to make air travel any less desirable for most people.

I fly free sometimes. Yet it still has become less desirable.  It's got nothing to do with costs.

[Berkut]

nice, punishing travellers because officials are incompetent. His own dad informed on him for crying out loud!

...and if some guy you know was denied the right to travel based on a unsubstantiated phone call from someone claiming to be his dad, you would be bitching about how all this ridiculous security is infringing on peoples rights.

[Berkut]

By the way, it's gonna be a total bitch for me to fly back, they already did all that new stuff to me when I left. I'll probably literally be strip searched next time, I'm gonna have to get there four hours early.

According to Berkut, it's not a big deal at all.

Toronto int'l airport is experiencing 8 hour delays for people flying to the USA.

According to my anecdotal evidence, it isn't any big deal at all.

I heard that the Heathrow airport security is randomly shooting people who try to fly to the US.

[Berkut]

And even with that cost, the price of an airline ticket has not appreciably risen as a result. It *has* risen some, but not enough to make air travel any less desirable for most people.

I fly free sometimes. Yet it still has become less desirable.  It's got nothing to do with costs.

Uh-huh. I am sure not being able to have 110ml bottle of hair gel is just killing you.

[Neil]

Sometimes I think we will lose this battle (despite our pathetic opponents); our responses are so unintelligent and pusillanimous 

How do you lose the war on terror? Or, for that matter, how do you win it?

You win the war on terror when the entire population of the third world is exterminated.

[DontSayBanana]

I think terrorism succeeds when they kill a bunch of people in some spectacular manner.

Why lower the bar for them?

Because it's not about killing people; it's about fucking with their heads.  The body count's a happy bonus in their eyes.

[Admiral Yi]

nice, punishing travellers because officials are incompetent. His own dad informed on him for crying out loud!

According to what I've heard about the case, the Nigerian dude didn't trigger enough flags to be put on the no fly list.

[Razgovory]

I don't really understand the bizarre and utterly irrational response of limiting items brought aboard a plane in the wake of a bomb attack.  We should just adopt the much more moderate response of putting a CCTV camera every 100 yards or so across the whole of the country like in Britain.  This just a power grab by anti-hair gel fanatics.  It's sad to see the terrorists win like this.