Say Cheeeeeese....

By Rick Moran

Just what will those terrorists think of next? After downplaying the idea for years that terrorists in America were practicing "dry runs" of hijacking operations, the feds have just issued a warning to airports to be on the lookout for terrorists practicing to carry explosives on to airplanes:

The unclassified alert was distributed on July 20 by the Transportation Security Administration to federal air marshals, its own transportation security officers and other law enforcement agencies.

The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included "wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances," including block cheese, the bulletin said. "The unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern."

Security officers were urged to keep an eye out for "ordinary items that look like improvised explosive device components."

Block cheese? It appears that cheese has the exact same weight and consistency of some types of plastic explosives. The feds found the cheese attached to cell phone charger as well as another package taped tightly together with other innocuous items with wires sticking out of it.

There is little doubt that terrorists are ever probing our air transport system looking for weaknesses as well as trying to ascertain our reactions to threats. I can't help but think about the plan hatched by Kahlid Sheik Mohammad in the mid 1990's to hijack a couple of dozen airplanes and crash them into the Pacific Ocean. Osama himself dismissed the plan as too ambitious.

Might al-Qaeda have reconsidered?

A plot like that would be years in the making with many "dry runs" made to test our defenses as well as gather intelligence in order to train the actual hijackers.

Just a bad dream? Or a nightmare waiting to happen? I wish I had more confidence in the people responsible for airport security. But when they spend as much time frisking a 70 year old woman for explosives as they do a Muslim male, I can't help but wonder how really safe it is to fly.