Chaos
Posted: Fri 11 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 11 Comments »OK, so supposedly the UK police have foiled a terrorist ‘plot’ to blow up a bundle of planes. Aye, right.
Maybe I’m just an utter cynic, but isn’t it great how
- this got released one day after Our Illustrious Leader flew off (long-haul) on his hols
- this got released one week after the decision to make the UK ‘shit-scared level’ publically accessible
- it supposedly makes people feel ‘more secure’ by making them wait longer at airport checkins
What it does go to show is just how shit the current security checks are when you get to an airport. In fact, let’s face it, they’re all there to make the public feel safer. “Oh, terrorists can’t get on our flight, because we’ve been checked once, and all our stuff’s been X-rayed.” We’ll just gloss over the entire farcical fact that once you’ve gone through that X-ray machine, you’re in the food area, where you can get served meals with metal cutlery (order a steak – see what you get to cut it with!), buy perfume bottles you can shatter into heavy glass knives, and buy gift sets with the dreaded nail file and/or scissors.
At the moment you’re not allowed to take on most of your hand luggage, instead it has to be checked in to the hold. Now OK, that’s fair enough. But hang on, um, if there are explosives in that hand luggage, they’re still going to be putting it on the sodding plane!
And on the subject of explosives, OK, you’ve uncovered this plot to blow planes out of the sky. Right. You’ve buggered up the plans and announced them to the world, but the current security scare is because “there might be people we haven’t detected yet”. Now, any prospective terrorist who’s got a brain cell won’t be heading to the airport. Oh no. They’ll be going to the train station, or the bus station, or the motorway service station, where there’s no security, and causing chaos that way instead. If they’ve got the explosive, they’ll use it – just not on a plane. That’s not cynicism, that’s common sense.
Personally I’m a total cynic, and don’t believe this “plot” at all. It does, however, provide a viable story (which could equally be made into a Hollywood action movie) for the resultant media hysteria, as well as the security forces being able to say “Look, we’re great, we broke this ‘plot’ – we need more money in the next budget so we can keep on breaking up these plots” and for the government to trolley out the same old shit about “we need ID cards, so this sort of thing won’t happen, and it’ll be easier to process people through airports etc. Oh yes it will. Honest” It works on the slightly warped logic that people will feel safer because we’re “stopping terrorism”, and we’re aware of these plots to kill people, so we’ll tell you all about it, scare the shit out of you, and you’ll fucking welcome the extra security measures and totalitarian surveillance that we bring in on the back of it. In fact, you’ll bloody well want to have your lives on camera, your calls listened to, your ID stamped in a barcode on your forehead, because it’s Special Home-office Intelligence on Terrorism.
Or SHIT for short.
Blimey mate, it’s one thing being a cynic, it’s quite another to head off into “conspiracy theory” land.
Whilst I agree that this MAY be getting played heavily, I’d much rather that than have some planes blow up.
Ohh and I don’t quite get yer point about the hand luggage… they could just as easily put the explosive in the main luggage anyway?? Confused.
Haha, it must take a monumental effort to get out of bed some days, eh Lyle? 😉
Oh and don’t forget, the Royal family are all lizards, too…
Gordon, the point I was trying to make about that hand luggage is that if there are explosives in the hand-luggage, this security exercise isn’t dealing with the issue by removing suspect items – instead, they’re just checking hand luggage into the hold.
So actually, you’re still flying with explosives on board the plane. Which seems kind of – well – dumb.
But as you say, maybe I’m just too cynical for my own good.
Or maybe it is all bollocks, and just backfilling a good lie to make people feel safer, so long as they don’t think about it.
Ah good, it’s not just me who’s feeling cynical and disbelieving about the entire thing.
I’m used to this stuff, I’ve always had to go through security checks when going to Northern Ireland – It makes me laugh when I get searched. I even had my radio dismantled one year at Belfast Int. Airport. More fun and games this year when I go on holiday, hopefully I’ll get frisked by some young attractive lady, instead of a bloke. Oh and I refuse to take my passport as ID, but that’s just my politics, kinda the same as yours Lyle, why should i prove who I am – as they say BOLLOCKS TO BLAIR!
I agree with you it’s all pretty much badly handled.
However I will say
A) I do believe they have captured terrorists
B) The theory was that the explosives and the triggers and all the bits would be taken on by multiple terrorists and assembled on board, hence it shouldn’t go off in the hold.
What I want to know is
a) Why can they not detect the explosive material, and for how long have the airlines been at risk. Either they are not as risk and this is all crap or they are at risk, and all the scanning is broken.
Secondly knives and stuff everyone can get I understand stopping. As everyone has access to them. However stopping ipods and laptops and books because some people might have access to explosive material and fuses is unreasonable. The next step really is stopping all air travel. In fact all travel. In fact stop everything. Because everyone is now suspect … etc etc.
Catching terrorists = good.
Over reacting and treating everyone like terrorists = bad.
Not going to be the one to remind you about the last time you came up with a conspiracy theory involving bombs, tube trains and the Olympic bid. Oh wait, yes I am! 😛
I do agree that they may well try to use this as a way of getting some issue pushed forward – like ID cards for example. And yes, the security measures on planes are a bit odd. I was only saying today how you aren’t allowed to take anything on the plane – but you can buy books and magazines after check in. Perhaps they’ve introduced a second security check before boarding.
And Adrian – the laptops/ipods thing is because they understood that the detonator would be disguised as one.
Hey, I raise cynicism to an art-form. And – to use the conspiracy theorist’s favourite argument – how do you know I wasn’t right? Just because it hasn’t been reported…
*grin*
I still bet this one’ll be used as a poster-child for the “ID cards are good” school, and “fund us more” arguments at the next budget though…
I just remember that the last time we had a big airline security scare thing was just before we went to war in Iraq. And also that Tony has been looking increasingly Fucking Retarded in his position on Israel.
But as I said in my post – this could all be so much simpler if the alleged terrorists would put out some sort of “We would’ve got away with it if it weren’t for you pesky kids” video.
Don’t use the budget argument, trust me…
I presume the ‘no laptops or books’ is to make it easier to carry out the searches for liquids at the security point after check-out and before shopping. If you have your clear plastic bag they can see that you only have your passport and tampax, and thus no explosives lurking in the hip flask. and then anything you buy airside can be deemed to have been bought airside and thus, not explosive.