Ever since the Nigerian Taliban terrorist tried to blow up his underpants on a packed post-Christmas flight from Europe to Detroit, there have been reports of special full body X-ray scanners they have rolled out at all the major airports across the country. These scanners are actually very intrusive - the scanning expert uses the X-ray to look right past your clothes, at every body cavity, as if you were standing before him unclothed - women, children, old people, the whole lot. There is a reason they are doing this, and a reason why privacy advocates are letting it happen. It has emerged that body cavities and the crotch are the favorite places for suicide bombers to hide their payloads in these days. That's why the Detroit bomber tried to set off his underwear. But is this all we have to fear? What if the terrorists were to get more creative? How much worse could it get? If anyone had suggested that people could hijack aircraft and blow themselves up just to make their point, they would have been laughed at before 2001. Are there any other possible paths for the terrorists to take, that could give them a chance at martyrdom? And how would the terrorism protection agencies deal with them?
There is a particularly striking plan of action that is doing the rounds these days: Botox attacks. Actually, it is botulinum the threat lies in, not Botox per se. Botox, the cosmetic doctor's mainstay, is a very diluted form of the most potent poison known to man, botulinum. A gram of the substance, mixed in with, say, the town's milk supply, could kill anywhere up to 100,000 people. Only bacteria, the kind involved in food poisoning, make this substance, and it isn't easy for just anyone to get started making this. But Botox happens to be a very profitable line of business; and they suspect that terrorists could be setting up Botox factories, just to be able to come into your supply, would they need some further deed. Terrorism protection plans that governments usually have, can have a little way of protecting against this - legitimate factories and businesses in foreign countries making Botox.
Another plan involves using pestilence. Ancient warriors used to collect beehives to be able to lob at their enemy armies. The Department of Defense has tried entomological warfare too, though with severely limited results. Terrorists today have really not let go of that hope yet; they still want to breed disease-carrying bugs at low costs, to release in our cities. But how much can a lone terrorist bring here in a suitcase? All the tourism protection you would need then, would be a can of bug spray. But there is one truly serious possibility that they have uncovered. And this would be difficult to protect against. There are hundreds of paragliding kits being purchased in the Islamic countries these days; a paraglider is essentially a parachute that is powered by a tiny propeller. You don't even need any training or licensing for it. The fear is that the terrorists could take to the skies, and drop bombs right in the middle of our cities. Of all the bizarre threats that have been doing the rounds these days, this is the only one that truly makes some sense.
But not every terrorist threat is this ambitious, or serious. Ever heard of World of Warcraft? If you have an adolescent child living at home, how could you have missed it? A couple of years ago, the US Department of Defense, in a Pentagon report, brought up a scenario where terrorists could actually use the detailed war environments presented in these games, to help train their own religious soldiers. They could even go online, for extra practice pitting people against people around the world. Or how about the way an Islamic terrorist organization tried to make a nuclear weapon using smoke detectors in 2004? Smoke detectors use microscopic quantities of Americium- 241, a radioactive material, for their function. Their plan was to buy thousands of these, and blow them up, so that everyone in the area would be radiation-poisoned. The authorities were aware of such a distant possibility, and were onto them for buying large quantities of smoke detectors, and shut them down before they even got started. But seriously, smoke detectors, once they're used up, land at garbage sites and landfills everywhere. There must be millions of them in the garbage heaps that lie outside every city. And no one ever said they would do anything.
They sure work hard to find ways to make a nuisance of themselves; there used to be that segment on the Tonight Show about dimwitted wannabe robbers who would get caught for one silly reason or another. Perhaps the terrorists are really no better.