Why planes?

Sure, they can be flown into things. But how about just walking the bomb right into a crowded building? Or shooting up a shopping mall? Or a sporting event?

They don't have to see my dick or cup my balls in order for me to get into the White House or the Capitol, so why are planes so special?

Baaaah. Now let me see your balls...

Duh!

Seriously, they did prove that the planes could be used as missiles, much to the shock and amazement of Condi and W.

Plus, I think it plays on the fears and dread most people already have related to flying.

And, it's SOMETHING visible that Homeland Security can be seen doing to justify the existence of their massive agency.

a small bomb, easily made and hidden. Given the altitudes at which many airlines fly any breach in the hull is potentially fatal to everyone on board, and there is always a good chance orf mopre damage when the pieces hit the ground. Plus, ther get lots of publicity and tend to screw up transportation and the economy for some time afterwards.

mark

But, surely, many other situations could be, too.

I think the basic problem is that many Americans just don't know who they can trust. And fear has been mongered, officially and in the media, rather than, for example, resilient stoicism.

it would be a lot easier than blowing up your taint on a plane too.

In the U.S., why aren't there blow-ups of WalMarts, shopping malls, sports stadiums?

Why the emphasis on planes and getting people to willingly submit to naked body scans and sexual groping by TSA?

Joking aside, I agree with you. I remember the impact that the DC sniper had. Even on the West Coast where I live there was still a huge amount of unease about the fact that someone could just shoot ya.

What really terrifies me is, like 20 terrorists just committing random shootings throughout the U.S.

Then again, what the fuck am I saying? Getting shot for no goddamned reason is as American as apple pie. Oy gevalt.

PB

There, what you wanted something that made sense? Sorry, these are GWB holdover ideas about 'scurty' from a shameful (and very recent) past that are still left as policy.

9/11 changed everything...go figure it out and let me know what it means.

made a giant-ass overreaction. Which is certainly what the perps were counting on.

it has the effect of crippling/shutting down an entire industry for days/weeks.

Economic effect from passengers/travelers canceling or forgoing flying.

"Economic effect from passengers/travelers canceling or forgoing flying."

Especially with the rollout right before one of the busiest airline seasons of the year.

It'll take more than just one day of protest/refusal to submit, and by a significant number of people, before the airliners feel any economic loss.

However... that, and the growing controversy, just might result in a policy change.

i always have wondered why nobody has tried to hijack plane coming onto the runway or while it's taxiing or fueling

Because they go for the spectacular.

Don

It makes us think they are actually doing something to keep us safe.

I'm going to take a wild guess that a terrorist could probably do something bigger with a town's water supply than they ever could with an airplane. But beefing up security at the reservoir just isn't as visible and sexy I suppose.

It's two things. Exploiting people's irrational fears and inability to calculate odds by:

a) appearing to increase security

b) generating profits for the companies that make the scanners

The actual odds of a terrorist making it on to a plane are immaterial. We've seen it happen so there obviously must be a terrorist still lurking in every airport bathroom.

"LOOK guys, we're doing stuff! LOOK! LOOK!!!!"

The ripple effects are global.

Once we're conditioned, you'll get the same treatment at sporting events, concerts and WalMart.

We've been warned - 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Fifth Element, Blade Runner... the list goes on.

It's just easier to keep people scared with planes,

I personally prefer a loaded LNG tanker in New York harbor.
Can you imagen the fire ball that would produce? Now theres a movie.

There have been buildings that were taken over, but the people that have done so are stuck in them. They don't have absolute control over them. Many buildings have infrastructure in place for just such an event. The buildings are stationary. They're fairly tough. They get a fairly predictable set of people, so when you target a building you target not the populace but a fairly identifiable subgroup.

You have a plane, you have a self-contained system with control over it. You can move it from place to place, at least in theory. The people are there with just what they have in their carry-on luggage--little chance of having a security system in there, of calling the cops and having them show up mid-flight. And the population density per square yard is really, really high, meaning there are a lot of people to hold hostage, to kill, and you don't have to go hunting them down room to room.

The passengers are also unarmed. With a decent number of women and children. Try that in a normal building. You have to do something like in Beslan, going after a school. That's what you may *want* to do, but you have to worry about PR back home and have plausible deniability for those over-eager to deny the plausible.

There's the terror aspect. It's random. You have no idea that the plane you'll be flying isn't targeted. There's no rhyme or reason as to who's affected. With buildings, just stay out of post offices and you're fine (okay, that was tongue in cheek). Makes for better stories because nearly everybody can find somebody in their group on a plane. Lots of personal interest stories.

Lots of people are a bit uneasy about flying anyway. May as well leverage that unease. Most people don't have a problem with just being in a building.

Planes are easy to destroy. Ever see a picture of a plane that caught fire? Much of the metal, at high enough temperatures, burns. They can be crashed, and the debris field makes for really rather spectacular visuals. And you know that when you die from either fire or crashing there's a lot of fear that preceded it, after they knew they were doomed: It's different from having a maniac with a gun, he might decide not to fire the thing and kill you, or you might be just wounded. Conflagrations on a plane are tough to put out; it's not always easy to just change your mind and decide not to crash a plane.

Then there's the added wrinkle that you can't generally pilot a building into another building. "Watch out, we have to shoot that post office down before the guy veers it into that skyscraper."

There's always tradition. You may notice a kind of cultural bias to most hijackings set in once they stopped being really, really fashionable. Even if they're not special in practical terms, they're special because we're conditioned to see them as special. And because to be able to blow one up means that the security apparatus has failed so the president and law enforcement folk are properly humiliated, and that kind of humiliation can be a potent force. Not so much in the US, but many a Muslim terrorist's ethnocentrism can be overlooked since they have much larger problems.

Now, you can do the same with boats and ships, but it's harder to get really good TV coverage, there are more rooms, and fewer really juicy victims.