Just my luck - I flew from Manchester to Boston yesterday, so I witnessed the latest security flare-up first-hand.
The part I observed directly was very well handled. Though the airport was packed, the staff was unflappable, instructions were clear, queues were orderly, and my fellow passengers were admirably patient. The worst part was not being able to take a book, meaning 11 hours with only celebrity trash magazines and three execrable movies. Still, I'm happy to be alive, and if there was any doubt about that, then I'm suitably grateful.
The arrest of 24 young British men in a mass suicide plot is obviously a sensational development. According to the Wall Street Journal, British officials believe this to have been an autonomous plot, "inspired but not guided" by Bin Laden. If the authorities got it right this time, it promises new insight into a phenomenon so far unique in the world: organized self-destruction for no clear purpose.
It's in the nature of a suicide bombing campaign that the objectives have to be compelling and widely-shared in the community from which the bombers come. In just about all known cases, these are territorial. The Tamil Tigers, non-Muslim pioneers of the genre, want independence from Sri Lanka. Al-Fatah and Hamas want Israeli settlers out of the West Bank. Bin Laden wanted US soldiers out of Saudi Arabia (and, by the way, we left). The Iraqi insurgents want us out of Iraq.
But what, exactly, do young British men of Pakistani origin want? Britain left Pakistan in 1947. Iraq is a long way from Pakistan, and anyway the British role there is minimal. It's also in the Shia area, which will never be returned to the Sunnis, whether British troops stay or go.
Well, we do have a video, don't we? Though it's obviously unrelated to this case, perhaps we can learn something from the previous example, the London bombings of July 7, 2005. Here's what the man identified as Mohammed Sidique Khan said, on a tape released by parties unknown, seven weeks after his death:
"I'm sure by now the media's painted a suitable picture of me, this predictable propaganda machine will naturally try to put a spin on things to suit the government and to scare the masses into conforming to their power- and wealth-obsessed agendas. I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our driving motivation doesn't come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer."
Forty years ago, I knew a lot of teenagers who talked like that, but they were all Christians or Jews. And a few of them self-destructed, mainly with drugs. Excuse me for being flip, but here's my point: if the new breed of British bomber has a motive, we don't know what it is. And that's very odd, for it makes no sense to sacrifice your life for a secret cause. But now we have 24 living suspects, allegedly prepared to destroy themselves on 12 separate airplanes. If they have motives, surely now they will declare, in open court, exactly what they are. That would be huge step forward.
A second puzzle emerging from the news today concerns the bombs. As someone who likes to take a sealed thermos of hot tea on board airplanes, I've wondered how the authorities could tell it wasn't (say) gasoline. Obviously, a pint of gas and a match could do a lot of damage on a plane. So it would be foolish to dismiss the security risk that seems to exist, and it would be prudent to start sniffing at sealed containers.
But according to reports today, these bombers were aiming at explosions. And how were they going to get them? It's not yet clear. We're told there are substances, like nitroglycerine, that you can use directly. But nitro is hard to get, and it has a nasty tendency to go off on slight provocation. And there are others, like acetone and peroxide, that can be mixed together - though unreliably, as the July 21, 2005 bombers discovered when none of their supposedly acetone-based bombs went off.
Perhaps there's a reason all this hasn't happened before, and also doesn't seem to happen much on the ground. Perhaps it's not so easy to pull off. So here's the question: Are we dealing with a ring, a network, a global conspiracy of professional terrorists? Or was this a bunch of loud-mouthed amateurs? Here's the problem: if you massively disrupt airline travel every time the police catch amateur loudmouths discussing a plot, you're inviting trouble. As economists say, the supply of amateur loudmouths is infinitely elastic.
Third question: how was this plot discovered? We can, I think, safely discard the possibility that any professional terrorist would openly say words like "acetone bomb" and "attack on airplanes" into a phone or in an email message. (Inference: if it was sigint, these were amateurs.)
The alternative is an informer. But if so, how do you know he's reliable? The answer is, you don't. This is a matter to be tested in court. It's what courts are for, and why British citizens, like Americans, are protected by the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
Finally - would the US authorities please not screw this up? This is a British police operation and Blair briefed Bush, so they ought to be singing from the same hymnal. But the British are saying the plot appears home-grown, while the US is saying "Al Qaeda." And the British have said the planes would have been blown up over the Atlantic (destroying all clues), while the US is saying "over American cities."
Does the thought of trying to set off an explosive mixture (say, in the lavatory sink) while over a city make any sense? Last I checked, which was yesterday, airplane lavs don't have windows. And also, did the official who said this realize that you can't tell if you're over a city when there are clouds?
Whatever the underlying facts of this case, clearly some people over here can't stop themselves - it's going to be part of the politics of the "war on terror" this election year. This is something we've seen before, and most of us have wised up. But it's too bad, because by now every political statement is corrupting; each one undermines the credibility of the investigation, and that is something that our British friends cannot afford.
It would be much better to let the facts emerge in court. And meanwhile we would all do well to remain calm - if possible, just like the police, security officers, airline staff, flight crew and passengers I had the privilege to be with yesterday in Manchester, and all the way across the Atlantic.
