Well, chillingly, these episodes have now been officially chalked up to terrorist activities.

Is this plastique, hexogen, easily detected during screenings? Do you think airport security procedures will change immediately in any significant manner?

See my Epipen post. All security checkpoint screening procedures inbound and outbound of the U.S. have been stepped-up for the foreseeable future.

<i>Well, chillingly, these episodes have now been officially chalked up to terrorist activities.</i>

Given the terrorist atrocities Chechens have been noted for in the past and the near-simultaneous explosion of two airplanes, I had little doubt these were acts of Chechen terrorism. They said on the news last night that two women are suspected. There were, as I recall, a number of women involved when Chechen terrorists took over that Moscow theater a few years ago.

<i>Is this plastique, hexogen, easily detected during screenings? Do you think airport security procedures will change immediately in any significant manner?</i>

Unless people are forced to strip naked at security checkpoints, I fail to see how any airport screening procedures can ever provide 100% security. The bad guys are almost always one step ahead. Plug one hole in the dike (i.e. screen for box cutters, etc.) and the water pressure will find another opening.

Your input was appreciated, Capo. I knew the &quot;Black Widows&quot; Chechen suicide terrorists would ultimately be the cause. They also have been reported to be funded/trained and have close alliance with al-Qaeda.

I wasn't really asking if every conceivable means of airline descruction could be detected (short of stripping naked) but rather if currently this plastique can be detected - like traces of gunpowder or fireworks.

Regardless of what our Administration would have us believe, we are at war with al-Qaeda, not Iraq -- and given the downing of these Russian jetliners, that is the real and scary concern at the forefront.

Thanks, KS.

<i>I wasn't really asking if every conceivable means of airline descruction could be detected (short of stripping naked) but rather if currently this plastique can be detected - like traces of gunpowder or fireworks.</i>

I knew what you were asking. I was merely pointing out that if hexogen can be detected 100% of the time, then something else will eventually be used. Unless you have &quot;police-state&quot; airport security -- which few, if any, people will accept -- I just fail to see how terrorist attacks on airliners can be absolutely prevented.

<i>Regardless of what our Administration would have us believe, we are at war with al-Qaeda, not Iraq -- and given the downing of these Russian jetliners, that is the real and scary concern at the forefront.</i>

Well, we are (or should be) also &quot;at war&quot; with everyday violent crime and drunk driving, both of which kill a tremendous amount of people in the U.S. every year.

Politics aside, I think KS542 had a legitimate question, about whether or not this plastique and others can be detected when ON or in someone's person.

With the Annie Jacobsen scare, the one thing that seemed to come out of that that WAS true was that the US government has 'intelligence&quot; that terrorists have looked at plots for assembling a bomb in flight. That seems to be a very legitimate reality. Very very scary. And very very tragic.

Does our resident airlaw expert have any insider information you can share about this plastique--is it detectable if it doesn't go through on a conveyer belt (i.e. on or in a person?) and what the US and other governments are going to be able to increase secrity further?

And as Rex said previously (though I don't agree with his reasoning why) I'm SHOCKED that this is a major organized terrorist incident with 2 planes going down simultaneously and it has had relatively little media coverage that I can tell. Is it the secrecy of the Moscow gov't or something else? If this had been any other country in the world right now flights all over the place would be grounded, people would be being searched and profiled, and it just seems as though things are very &quot;business as usual.&quot;

~kat

You will find much more information through the Russian media, here is a couple:

Pravda http://english.pravda.ru/

Moscow Times http://www.themoscowtimes.com/

Gazeta
http://www.gazeta.ru/english/

Moscow News
http://mosnews.com/news/

My &quot;reasoning&quot; was a case of my being smart-alecky, more than any actual political conviction.

I remain astonished. If something ressembling a terrorist suicide bomber had killed so much as ten people at the Olympics - - well, I can only imagine the over-reaction there might be.

In a paradox, I predict that in 10-20 years, we may look back at this <i>under</i>-reaction and perhaps it will be a turning point. Why pick airplanes for acts of terrorism? Too much trouble. If this is what one person wearing one pound of plastique can do - - well then it isn't hard to think of ways to take out a whole lot more people in more tightly packed, vulnerable settings. A high-school basketball finals, an aisles-jammed mall the weekend before Christmas shopping peaks, a college graduation...

The methodology used by the 9/11 terrorists had been described in two novels by Tom Clancy, <u>Debt of Honor</u> in 1994 and <u>Executive Orders</u> in 1996.

The World Trade Center had been attacked in 1993 with a truck bomb.

A terrorist plan to blow up 11 American-flag airliners simultaneously was discovered in 1995 in Manila.

Is that enough dots for everyone?

The Annie Jacobsen nonsense was recently taken out and given a dust-off by a low-rent Rupert Murdoch Sunday rag here. At least the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's &quot;Media Watch&quot; program held them up to gleeful ridicule.

I agree it's is a pity we're bogged down in a country where Al Quaeda never was because it's too hard to figure out what to do about the places where they are. Reminds me of that old shaggy dog story about the drunk looking for a lost dime under a street lamp because the light was better than in the place he dropped it.

Even scarier to me is the 20 year old Cuban woman who last week hide in a DHL boxed wooden crate and was delivered undiscovered and safe fron Nassau, Bahamas to Miami, Florida. The plane had taken off from Havana, Cuba with a stop in Nassau. She got to the Miami Intl Airport, arrived safe with a cell phone and a bottle of water. What if?

Did anybody heard about this on the news?

I must confess, I'm more than a little astonished that someone would cite to a fiction writer concerning the methodology of the 9/11 hijackers when the full 537 page 9/11 REport is available on line at the Commission's website: www.9-11commission.com

A sampling: Ch. 1: &quot;We Have Some Planes&quot;

Ch.7: 949KB The Attack Looms. This Ch. contains what is known concerning the m.o. of the hijackers-and what is known, is quite a lot.

Given that this country is coming up on the third anniversary of that terrible day, the Report makes for a very worthwhile, not to mention sobering, read. It is important, IMO, for Americans to read the facts on what is known about the 9/11 attacks, rather than engage in speculation about the various theories that show up on the internet every few minutes, theories that are either off in lala land, or, the reliable standby, government- conspiracy based.

I purchased the 9/11 Commission Report the day it was released and read it the following weekend. Do I get your gold seal of approval?

Spygirl,

Are you sure about that link? I tried it and was taken to one of those domain looking search page things. No links for the report.

My point, for those who may have missed it, is that enough was known to foresee the 9/11 attacks long before the event (and, obviously, quite a while before the Commission published its report).

The simultaneous destruction of multiple airliners in Russia was predicted by the Manila arrests. Do you think adequate precautions are in place to preclude that happening here? With the TSA looking only for sharp things?

I harbor no theories beyond my observation that our government is impotent against asymmetric warfare because it is clumsy and stupid.

I will not fly on a US-flag carrier. The odds of survival aren't good enough for me.

I'm also surprised by the lack of media coverage this has received (in my market), when there are so many non-events that are covered <i>ad nauseum</i>.

Not to reinforce the hysteria that leads to too much thinking along the lines of &quot;The only thing we have to fear is every damn thing&quot; (with apologies to FDR), but I had great difficulty getting home from work on Friday because a pipe bomb was found on the main commuter road leading to the Interstate and so the road (and surrounding roads) were closed down during rush hour.

Nothing conclusive yet, but the police seem to think it was. . . kids. Apparently, pipe bombs are pretty easy to make.

<b>PLMN -</b>

www.9-11commission.gov

Well I'm leaving Sunday. Now its the 2 planes, the subway bomber and the school in Southern Russia. I will not cancel our trip. We've been looking forward to it but am worried about riding the subway in Moscow.

What a sad world we live in.

I think that you will find that the security on the subway and within Moscow will be very tight.

I was in Moscow a day after the theatre incident, many people were being checked on the street.

I still plan on returning to Russia next year.

Fbeifeld, I'm also leaving to a St. Petersburg/Moscow river cruise in a week. I am not canceling my trip either but like you , I am afraid of walking in the streets in both cities and being in the Moscow's subway stations.
You are right, this world is getting scaring.