I was thinking the exact same thing the other day (had to take 3 flights on Friday).
First of all, if I were a terrorist I’d try and hit something more crowded, like maybe a boat. But then again we’re thinking “terrorist”. From their point of view the attackers are not terrorists, they’re freedom fighters who are trying to protect their country (or religion) for the Evil Infidel Aggressor of the West. Or the Evil Englishman, Castillano or Turk, depending on who’s fighting. This means they have a certain moral code and certain targets are “valid” whereas others aren’t. But yes, I’ve also been thinking that the very measures taken at airports are making it a challenge, and the effort to attack a plane is more symbolic than practical, and is meant to damage the reputation rather than resources for example. Why not attack a food silo instead, or poison the water supply or something? It would probably be simpler and cause much more harm. And obviously the civilians killed were more or less harmless to the attacker and in most cases innocent (and even oblivious to the cause of the attack).
But I don’t think that removing security will mean that attacks will stop, at least not at first. Once the defences are down there will be a mass-scale attack with thousands of victims, and who’d like to take the political blame for such a decision? It’s just like the online security of sites which have been hacked. The more they tighten up security, the harder the hackers have to try to prove they can better it, but this does not mean that if they remove everything the hacking will stop.
There are only two ways to stop these attacks:
The first, the way the US and Israel have tried, is to completely eliminate the possible enemy. Genocide of every single Arab out there. No Muslims left standing. If you kill them all, then there will be no more to commit suicide. Apparently the buggers have been reproducing at a rate faster than they can be killed, and despite Israel’s commendable efforts in killing children, the threat remains. First it was the odd 40-year-old Palestinian bum with nothing better to do than offer his life to Allah, then it was educated Saudis and Egyptians joining Al Quaida, now it’s 15-year-old Lebanese girls taking dynamite onto their school buses.
The second, which is what the UK and Spain have tried to do, is remove the cause of aggravation. In all of these cases, the “terrorists” are desperate people with nothing better to do than plot against our way of life. Even though philosophically it can be considered a defeat, the practical view is that, if you give them what they want, or at least hope for what they want, they can get on with their lives and leave us alone. The IRA have stopped attacking UK targets ever since the real peace talks started (it wasn’t even a territorial dispute). ETA have been slightly less co-operative, but Spain is still not as bad as Iraq or Afghanistan. And the recent attack against the Togo national team in Copa Africa turned the world’s eyes to Angola’s problem. I’m sure we can all eventually live together if we really want to.
So I don’t think real security at airports should cease to exist, though it should be more comprehensive and not idiotic (my daughter was not allowed to take her milk on board when she was 3 in case she was going to attack the pilot, through the reinforced steel door, with the straw). If a real terrorist wants to attack, he’ll find an easier way. When I worked at Airbus I could roam around Dresden airport more or less unnoticed, despite the fact that I had not really been vouched for and nobody ran a background check on me. I could have easily been a threat, as I often carried a bag with me that the one guard at the gate rarely checked. But when I tried to fly from the same airport on my birthday, they confiscated the candles from my birthday cake as “potentially dangerous flammable material”.
At the same time, politicians should perhaps try and sort out the real reasons behind these attacks, rather than look at the symptoms.
Sorry this was too long, got carried away.
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