Drill and disaster

“He carries the past with him —
As a wounded animal drags a trap
The pain torments the captive limb
A destiny, a faded map…”
From Khaddi Boli To Hyperbole by Bachchoo

The Americans, bless them, have carried out a test on their own airport security precautions. Seventy undercover agents from one of their myriad statistico-investigative snoop-shops, posing as ordinary passengers passed through security at American airports carrying explosives and weapons which could be used to terrorise or hold to ransom the occupants of the flight. Sixty-seven of the 70 Weapons of Horrific Airborne Terror (WHAT?) passed through security without being detected and could have been smuggled onto planes and created the sort of havoc we saw in New York in 9/11.

Cor Blimey! Jumping Josephat, Kis dooniyaan ki dasataan mein! — or whatever phrase you want to use, gentle reader, to express your utter bewilderment at such a statistic.

I can’t assume that everyone who reads this is regularly subjected to the scrutiny of bored and impolite security personnel at international airports. I am. I have recently travelled from London’s airport to India, to Germany and from there back or to points abroad. I rarely collect my frequent traveller’s points and bonuses as I rely on others — literary festival hosts, university-wallas who call me to seminars, etc. to buy my tickets and can’t be bothered to fill in the forms which would give me free burgers or upgrade me at some hotel in Bosnia.

I was always bored by air travel. At first, because I got air sick. That passed with practice and then the boredom was occasioned by long waits for late flights. The most annoying aspect of modern travel is, of course, the security check. It entails setting out for the airport hours earlier than necessary had there been no threat by maniacs, mostly of the Islamicist persuasion in our times, to passenger flights.

Queuing up, unloading toothpaste and after-shave into plastic bags, removing one’s laptop from the hand luggage, taking off one’s jacket, shoes, belts, gold earrings and necklaces (joking!) and then queuing up again for frisking behind someone who is pushing in from the next security conveyor belt is routine and disgusting. Explaining to Arab policemen that my right knee has a titanium transplant which will inevitably make their Geiger counter, or whatever device they pass over it, to go “beep” is more tiresome. And all the time my cheap flight is boarding and my anxiety mounting!

The American investigation and startling statistic makes one wonder whether all those man-woman hours, all those millions of dollars, pounds, rupees, euros, yen and even roubles etc. being spent on checking bomb-carriers at airports is worth anything at all. Sure, they thwarted three out of 70 attempts at smuggling WHATs past the X-ray machines and frisk-dadas, but does that really inspire confidence?
In writing this column, I searched for statistics to ascertain how many bombs or other certain security threats had been detected on passengers by security scrutiny worldwide. No such statistics are available.

I suspect this is because probably no bombs were discovered in rucksacks or suitcases passing through the hand luggage X-ray machines. No explosives were found in heels of shoes or in buckles of belts. If I were a terrorist wanting to blow up planes or hold hostages on them, I would certainly have been deterred by the overt and elaborate security examination that we all have to undergo as air passengers. I wouldn’t if I had the least common sense conceal a bomb in hand luggage and submit it to airport scrutiny.

I am talking, of course, from the perspective of last week. Now that I am in possession of the American statistic and were I a terrorist in say Texas or Bradford UK, I would get 70 of my brainwashed congregation to carry bombs onto aircraft knowing that there was a 67:3 chance that one would get through. Much better than any odds I have been offered at Epsom or Ascot!

A British terrorist, assessing the risk at 67 to 3, would certainly take a chance. If he (or she) were among the unlucky three, he could look forward to a long trial and the British state continuing to pay his rent and give his wife and children enough welfare benefits to live in comfort while the government paid for his defence and some British liberal organisation, ignoring the fact that there was money available from mosque funds paid for by Saudi Arabia, would launch a campaign to free the “Jihadi One!”

Does the American discovery of the uselessness of airport security mean that it will be tightened up to be able to detect more WHATs? How will this be achieved? Or does it mean that governments will face the fact that security scrutiny at airports is bound to fail and that other intelligence measures have to be put into operation as they have been successfully in the past to detect, arrest and prevent terrorist activity?
In India, at hotels, at government buildings, museums and even at shopping malls there are arrangements parodying those used at international airports to detect or deter terrorists. On entering these places by a car, a carriage is wheeled under it, presumably to detect bombs. The boot is opened and checked. Nobody bothers to check inside the car and a passenger could easily be carrying the most lethal bomb in his bag or at his feet without fear or favour.

At shopping malls, one passes through the alarmed frames but no one is ever stopped. The uniformed surveillance staff grin at you and ask you to have a nice day.

All this laxity is not and hasn’t been a reaction to India always knowing that surveillance of this sort is near useless. It has more to do with India needing to employ an army of people on low pay to do nothing. That’s Indian capitalism — or is it India being satisfied by symbolic rather than effective presences.