Running With Scissors

I expect this entry to be a series of short takes on stuff laying around in my brain.

The Transportation Safety Administration, those people who bring us long lines and delays at airports, has announced that starting December 22 we will again be allowed to carry scissors and small tools on airplanes.

Some people applaud this decision to speed up security checks while others point out that it puts us a step back toward the "bad old days" when hijackers could bring box cutters on planes for hijacking purposes. TSA points out that with reinforced cockpit doors, these restrictions are no longer necessary.

I continue to point out that what has forever made air travel safer is the potential hijackers' realization that the passengers no longer have an incentive to stay peacefully in their seats. Now, we'll die fighting, because fighting is the only hope we have of surviving the ordeal, slim as that hope might be.

You see, there is NO security system devised by human beings that can't be defeated by human beings. The most we can hope for is that security will make it easier to catch the less smart ones and slow down the others. Eventually, we have to take the risk that we'll have to defend ourselves from attack. We can't always expect somebody else to do that for us.

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As his trial today, Saddam Hussein is quoted as saying that he is not afraid to be executed. That's good, because that's what's going to happen, eventually. But before it happens, he's going to have a trial or a series of trials so that his guilt in various situations can be officially determined, even though that guilt is beyond dispute by anyone other than Saddam himself.

Doesn't it seem odd that we have to have a judicial proceeding and pretend that his innocent until proven guilty? It's not as if his gassing of the Kurds, killings of political opponents, and raping of any woman who struck his fancy are in dispute.

Couldn't we make the case that the expense of this trial could be put to better use when the outcome is certain and the penalty known? Perhaps, but we'll continue the dance until the last tune is played. Then, if he hasn't died from natural causes or taken his own life (see Hermann Goering at Nuremburg), he will be executed in whatever manner the Iraqis see fit.

But make no mistake about it, Saddam Hussein is a dead man.