Amidts the outrage over the TSA airport pat-downs, it’s easy to lose sight of why they’re necessary in the first place: Over the past year, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has developed “body bombs,” or “butt bombs” if you prefer. In 2009, a Saudi terrorist flew on an airplane and passed through a metal detector before detonating an internal bomb before a Saudi prince, who survived the attack. Then, last Christmas, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to detonate his underwear bomb on a Detroit-bound plane. Christopher Dickey of Newsweek writes, “The protesters demanding pat-downs to tie up Thanksgiving travel seem to have the idea the TSA is the enemy. That is a real mistake. There are bad guys out there, and they aim to hurt a lot of Americans, not only directly, but by forcing us all to take ever tougher and ever more costly security procedures. Until the public decides it can live with a certain level of risk, which could be pretty high, the TSA will continue to bend over backwards trying to figure out the best ways to keep passengers safe.”
CHEAT SHEET
TOP 10 RIGHT NOW
- 1
- 2
- 4
- 5
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10