I Don't Fly, But Still...

Oh, where to start? It bothers me that I have become so jaded by the administration's breathless announcements of terra situations--coincidentally timed to wipe out negative news like Libby's indictment or Lieberman's primary loss--that my first reaction to the Liquid Bombs On A Plane story is to doubt it, or at least to question the true extent and signficance of it compared to the ominous picture initally painted.

Questions? I got questions. If the bad guys have been rounded up and the threat neutralized, why is the terra alert system jacked up to Kiss-You-Ass-Goodbye red? Isn't this more of a parallel How Bad It Could Have Been system at work instead?

If liquids pose such a deadly threat, to the extent that even the minute volumes contained in eyewetting drop bottles or lip gloss could destroy an aircraft, why did the TSA have passengers dumping them all indiscriminantly into the same plastic trash barrels at the security gate (as pointed out on AmericaBlog)? Seriously, how are we supposed to trust either the claimed level of the threat or the measures put in place to ameliorate it when this is the response?

Were I a terrorist mastermind (note to my NSA minders: I'm not really a terrorist mastermind, not yet, so this is pure conjecture), I swear I would send my lower-level flunkies onto planes with all sorts of absurd incendiary modifications in their clothing and necessary personal items. I'd pack plastique into a female flunky's underwire but leave the detonator cord dangling in plain view, so it would be discovered and the TSA would require all female passengers to shed their bras before boarding. I'd have an eldery flunky attempt to ignite his hearing aid. I'd have one make frequent trips to the bathroom, where he would make ominous clanking and beeping noises, to ensure that all the bathrooms on every jet would be boarded up.

Dance, dammit! Lemme see you dance!!!

Or maybe I'd just realize that every piece of checked baggage isn't opened and screened. If you're sophisticated enough to measure out quantities of explosives and disguise them as eyeliner, you're sure as hell sophisticated enough to put together a device that will detonate in the cargo hold. 60% of that stuff goes uninspected.

Anecdote time. Traveling more than ten miles through Peru can be a hassle, and was especially hassle-ish in the late '80s when the Maoist rebel group Sendero Luminoso was quite effectively blowing stuff up and killing people throughout the southern Andes. Airport security was unbelievably tight, but efficient. You showed up two hours before your flight, and the boarding process involved going to the waiting room designated for your flight, displaying your ticket, having it matched to your passport, and then plopping your checked bag on a table and opening it for the nice army officer to go through. Every folded bit of clothing was patted down, containers opened, unfamiliar items required to be explained (case in point: tampons). When the inspection was finished, you closed your bag and they sealed it with tape, and it went to the cart. The cart was then escorted to the plane by armed guards.

Nerve-wracking but effective, and definitely made more efficient by the sheer numbers of guys they had working the inspection tables. It would, of course, require a complete reconfiguration of airport security in this country. But I can't help thinking it would do more to actually ensure the security of an airplane than patting down a random sample of passengers, taking their shoes off, or confiscating their potentially deadly liquids by mixing them all in the same vat.

Hum-a-lum-a Humala

Ollanta Humala has forced a runoff in Peru's presidential election. He's positioning himself as a nationalist and a populist who will kick out the foreign corporations and return power to Peruvians, the mestizos and Indians in particular. Sounds great. Except that the last time somebody promised the same thing in Peru it resulted in a guerilla movement that ruled through sheer terror. Peru was an economic mess under Garcia, an environment that allowed the Sendero Luminoso to grab the imagination of the peasants (and then grab them by the nuts once the movement acquired enough machetes, machine guns, and grenades). Vargas Llosa was okay, but Fujimori made a complete mess of the country. He eliminated the terrorist threat posed by the Sendero, to be sure, but did it by effectively declaring himself dictator and suspending the constitution.

Meanwhile, foreign-owned consortiums continue to get fat off the copper mines in the south and the silver mines in the jungle, with very little returned to Peru. The US-based Southern Copper Corporation (formerly Southern Peru Copper Corporation) does some community affairs work, you know, irrigation canals, school funding, and ongoing archaeological projects such as the one I worked on for two summers in the late '80s. Their local workers make okay money, and if they're fortunate enough to live near a company-built hospital they have access to substandard medical care (as opposed to the absent medical care enjoyed by most of the lower class). But for the most part, Peru's a poor country that's been teetering on the edge of stability for decades, a place that's ripe for a dynamic guy like Humala who says the words the peasants want to hear.

But he'd be an even worse disaster. No government is immune to corruption, but the Panel of Me thinks nascent nationalist movements run by former military coup leaders are more susceptible than most. Put the mines under state control and kick out the DEA, and where do you stop? It's a very intoxicating cocktail he's chilling the shaker for. And there's nothing like several thousand guns backing you to fuck up an initially good idea. If he wins, does he really think the Bush administration will sit by idly and do nothing while he takes Peru on the same hard left turn Venezuela and Bolivia recently took? Does he plan on forging Peru's new path without the support of the World Bank? I mean, come on--with Paul Wolfowitz in charge, how many low-interest loans realistically will be heading Peru's way?

Anyway, I care about this because of the time I spent in Peru and the friends I made there, most of them Aymara peasants who owned two changes of clothes, a pair of sandals made from old tires, and not much else. The majority of the population gets shit on no matter who's in charge. It would just be nice to see a power structure that doesn't invite even more misery.