What Went Wrong with Flight 253?

By Tom Kando

I’d like to talk about two interesting aspects of the aftermath of flight 253 and of Abdulmutallab’s failed attempt to blow it up:

(1) The inevitable Monday-morning quarter backing, the fact that the authorities always react rather than protect, always close the barn after the horse is gone, and (2) the mutual finger-pointing:1) What happens, every time, is this: (a) there is a one-time incident; (b) we pass new laws and policies to deal with it retroactively, hundreds of millions of people are inconvenienced forever, and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent; (c) the next event comes from a totally different and unanticipated direction; (d) we never find out whether the hundreds of millions of dollars and the inconvenience to hundreds of millions of people have helped or not. There is no such thing as evaluation research when it comes to anti-terrorism policies.

...or anti-crime policies either, for that matter. Indeed, it’s the same thing with crime. Politicians pass ever more draconian laws and lock ever more people up on the basis of rare, celebrated cases. That’s the origin of the three-strikes laws, the Jessica laws, the Megan laws, the sex-offenders laws, etc. For example, a horrendous crime such as the murder of Polly Klaas happens, and as a result, the nation’s prison population increases ten-fold over the following two decades. This is no way to run a railroad.

But back to terrorism. Because of flight 253, travel will become even more cumbersome. As a result of a single (and even failed) attack, hundreds of millions of us will now be inconvenienced in perpetuity. Same thing happened after Richard Reid’s shoe bomb attempt. Ever since then, we have had to take our shoes off when passing security. Has this inconvenience been useful? You say, “well, there haven’t been any further shoe bomb attempts,” and, “even if the inconvenience only saves one life, it’s worth it,” or, “what if it were your life?”

My answer to your first argument: Most overseas airports don’t require you to take off your shoes, and they haven’t had any shoe bomb attacks either. As to your second point, actually, no, it is not true that the sky is the limit when it comes to saving a human life. Everything must be cost-benefit analyzed. There is always a point beyond which we simply have to accept some risk, and forego our futile quest for 100% security. About your third point - I’m note sure.

What bothers me is our tendency to favor policies that make us feel good, whether they are useful or not, and whether their cost is exorbitant or not.

The flight 253 incident has led to a debate about airport body scanners. There are pragmatists, such as myself, who favor their use, and civil libertarians, who see them as a violation of privacy. Instead of using these highly effective machines, we hear about plans for drastic new security measures, such as forbidding all bathroom use a full hour before landing, and requiring international passengers to show up three hours before departure. Nuts!

2) The other tragic-comic aspect of the Schiphol-to-Detroit incident is the mutual finger pointing. Republicans are having a heyday blaming the Obama administration for its alleged laxness on terrorism. Ridiculous. Obama is plenty bellicose enough. Hasn’t he already escalated one of our two wars on terrorism? And under whose watch have terrorists killed more Americans so far - Obama or his predecessor(s)? The Homeland Security bureaucracy is what it is. Sure, it can, should and will improve, but it makes little immediate difference who the President is. The National Counter Terrorism Center was created after 9/11 to coordinate the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and all the other disparate agencies. It has a list of 600,000 suspects. But it seems that a new layer of bureaucracy has yielded little progress since 9/11. The partisan accusations are just silly politics.

And then, there is international finger-pointing: The other day, a friend teased me at the club saying, “haha, Kando, your socialist Dutchmen can’t even protect travelers against terrorists.”

At the same time, a Dutchman was quoted saying that Schiphol airport has the largest number of body-scanners in the world, but that the American government objects using them on US-bound passengers, thus tying the Dutch authorities’ hands.

Both accusations are absurd: For one thing, Schiphol is one of the safest airports in the world. Dutch security is as thorough, professional and effective as it is in the US. They did everything by the book. Abdulmutallab would have been able to board an airplane at any American airport just as easily.

As to the Dutchman’s allegation - false: It’s the European Commission which has opposed the use of scanners. I am very happy to hear that the Dutch have just decided to use them.

In conclusion: (1) be pragmatic, not a zealot. Do what works. You can use the damn scanners on me all you want - I have nothing to hide. (2) At the same time, realize that we will never achieve 100% safety, even if we spend ourselves into bankruptcy, or reduce air travel to a living hell. (3) Stop the finger-pointing. There is only one bad guy here - Abdulmutallab. (4) As usual, the finest response came from the passengers themselves, who courageously subdued Abdulmutallab like the heroes of flight 93 eight years ago. leave comment here