Hollywood Movie-Plot Terrorist Scenario #3A goes something like this:
Terrorists steal a general aviation aircraft, load it with explosives, and fly it into some major building, national landmark or heavily populated area.
The 9/11 aircraft all were large commercial aircraft operated by scheduled airlines. They carried no explosives. Specific flights were chosen by the terrorists because they wanted aircraft embarking on long trips with plenty of fuel on board. Twenty to thirty thousand gallons of kerosene represent a potent incendiary bomb. Flights known to be under-booked were chosen so that the terrorists wouldn’t have to contend with too many passengers.
There are big commercial airliners and then there are general aviation aircraft that comprise most of the rest of the non-military aircraft in the country. They range from small private aircraft (often generically called “Cessnas” by the public and news media) to corporate jets and even to some full-size commercial aircraft. (John Travolta, for example owns a retired Qantas Boeing 707).
There are around 200,000 general aviation (GA) aircraft in the United States (vs. about 7000 commercial aircraft) and around 500,000 general aviation pilots. The guys at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) apparently having been lying awake nights for the past nine years worrying that, sooner or later, someone would pack one of these GA airplanes full of explosives and do some serious damage. And they would be right. Sooner or later it’s going to happen.
There are about 6300 public general aviation airfields in the country plus an even larger number of private airstrips located on farms, ranches, and upscale hideaways. Security at most of these fields consists of a fence to keep livestock and deer off the runways. Stealing an airplane is generally regarded as easier than stealing a car.
Depending on the airplane, one could easily pack anywhere from a few hundred pounds to 50 tons of high explosives on a GA aircraft. So it is no surprise that the boys down at TSA were losing sleep over the idea.
It will also come as no surprise to you that, to save us all from an errant GA plane loaded with ANFO, the TSA guys came up with their most inane security idea yet. They were going to require all passengers on all GA aircraft to be checked against a terrorist watch list before the plane could fly.
Pilot on the phone at the Hastings, Nebraska airport talking to the TSA:
“…yeah me and my neighbor Art and his worthless brother-in-law Stu. Huh, lemme check. Hey Stu, you ever been arrested?… Uh, yeah he says he got picked up in ’85 for having sex with Ina May Huffman’s daughter, Clarice. I guess she was 15 or somethin.’ Art? Naw, him and his ol’ lady is fightin’ ’bout ever’ weekend but he don’t leave no bruises. Purpose of our trip? We’ll weez headed over by North Platte to look at some beeves Art’s thinkin’ of buyin.’ Beeves? Yeah them there’s cattle, see. No we ain’t bringin’ none of ‘em back in the fuckin’ plane! Christ almighty… Get’s kinda tight in the back seat. Stu ain’t missed many meals, ya know. How do I know it’s fat and he’s not wearin’ a bomb? Looka here mister, I knowed Stu a long time and he’s always been fat. Pat ‘im down?!! You think I’m some kind a faggot or something? I got a reputation to maintain aroun’ here…”
You get the idea. If you’ve ever heard some of these guys on the radio, they’ll tell you their life story just asking for permission to descend a thousand feet.
So TSA abandons that idea and figures they won’t require everybody to get clearance, just the people boarding at the 300 busiest GA airports. Fucking brilliant—like it would never occur to Farouq to use one of the 6000 other airports that isn’t monitored.
So now TSA has shut up, at least for a while. But believe me, they won’t quit. It pisses them off that there are some people who can just walk onto an airplane, start it up and go. No one checking for “dangerous” liquids or nail clippers. No one looking up their asses for C-4.
They’ll think of something. Don’t forget TSA’s motto, “If it pisses you off, it’s working.”
Posted by Lloyd Williams 
Osama’s bin Irrelevant
February 7, 2010Osama bin Laden
Although he’s been in the terrorist business for several decades, Osama bin Laden has been a household name only for the last decade. The events of 9/11 should ensure that he will be remembered as one of history’s great villains. Only nine months into the millennium (which started January 1, 2001, not 2000) he became the century’s first Bad Guy, scoring a respectable .62 on the Hitler Scale, the internationally recognized standard for rating bastards.
But, except for one unlucky day, he’s been largely a failure, receiving more attention than he deserves and far more credit than he deserves.
bin Laden heads up al Qaeda, the latest version of the Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight. He had one day (or what Andy Warhol would refer to as one’s “15 minutes of fame”) that was spectacular but the rest of his ‘mission’ has been pretty much a bust. On September 11, 2001 al Qaeda managed to kill just under 3000 people and injure 6000. But other than that one day, his successes (if measured by body counts) have been modest, paling in comparison to Chairman Mao, North Korea’s Kims, Pol Pot, Stalin and, of course, Hitler).
Some of the more famous body counts:
Stalin — 20-30 million
Hitler —15 million
Mao — 40 million
Pot —2 million (20% of Cambodia’s population)
Kims — millions (who knows?)
(The above figures are widely debated; the point is that even the minor players like the Kims and Pot make bin Laden look pretty lame).
bin Laden sort of took responsibility for the botched underwear bomber attack, a month after it happened. Apparently Abdulmutallab was trained at a bin Laden al Qaeda franchise operation in Yemen, albeit rather poorly. Like the inept shoe bomber, Richard Reid, Abdulmutallab scared the shit out of a lot of people but really didn’t do much damage. If Abdulmutallab is the best bin Laden can turn out these days, it’s time for him to retire before he jeopardizes his election into the Villains’ Hall of Fame.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Let’s retire bin Laden. Take him off the top of the FBI’s 10-most-wanted list and quit putting up his picture every time we need a stock photo of a terrorist mastermind.
The guy to worry about these days is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He’s working on building nuclear weapons; he working on long-range missiles; and, he’s fucking crazy. Now that’s a terrorist.