Terrorists foiled!

The most significant terrorist threat since 9/11. Red alert. Nipped in the bud. Peak of the tourist season. US carriers targeted.

I had a look at CNN and BBC world today and the terror scare has virtually banished coverage of Lebanon. Isn’t that convenient? Just like Lebanon shoved Gaza off the radar, and Gaza displaced coverage of the West Bank. So, is it real? Or is it just a convenient excuse to distract attention from the birth pangs of the New Middle East? The talking heads and the presenters all look so solemn and concerned.

Anyone aiming to massacre a lot of civilians would know that bringing down an airliner will definitely kill about 500. So, if there were just the 21 arrested, each on a separate plane, they could dispatch 10,500 or so. But if you really wanted to do a great deal of damage while conserving resources, you might think that a terrorist scare that brought tens of thousands to a major airport two hours earlier than usual, standing around going through enhanced security checks would provide a suitable opportunity. If there’s anything real about this, then I guess the antiterrorist authorities are in on it.

It’s a really nice touch making parents take a sip of their babies’ formula, just in case. It sends the message, ‘We know these terrorist bastards, and they are so cruel and cynical, that they would sacrifice their babies in pursuit of their dastardly aims.' If they are going to die anyway, wouldn’t they just grit their teeth and sip the formula.

Of course the great thing about foiling a terrorist attack is that you send all the cops running around everywhere looking like they’re doing something important in the public interest and nobody will ever know whether it was really going to happen, because it was foiled, after all, thank goodness.

But maybe the terrorists just want to cripple the US airline industry, as the pundits are predicting would have happened? Probably they have stock in Qantas or something?