Why are pilots and flight attendants paraded through metal detectors, but not cleaners and caterers?

Answer: Dumbforkery on the part of the TSA.

Aren't some of these same pilots now allowed to have guns in the cockpit?

If it meant a corresponding improvement in service. If that means some drunk illegal alien flies a plane in the wrong direction head on into another plane on the runway once in a while, then fine. A few gages and lights in the cockpit don't work? Screw it, This is goddamn bus, git it out the terminal, Ralphie Boy.

Yes, the JFK explosion plot appears to have been amateurish in the extreme. However, I am not really as reassured by that fact as you might be, Patrick. Perhaps what I find unsettling is the revelation that 25% or so of Muslims in America, when questioned in the much publicized Pew Poll, would not or could not condemn al Qaeda (5% of Muslims in America actually support al Qaeda, according to the poll!)

In any case, I write to question your dismissal of the idea of dry runs. Remember the infamous flying imams, who were removed from an airline bound for Arizona for suspicious behavior? Their spokesman was one Imam Sheikh Omar Shahin, originally of Jordan. This was not Shahin's first public defense of Muslims intimidating airline passengers; he also defended Muhammed al-Qudhaieen and Hamdan al-Shalawi.

Who are they? They are two Muslims students from Arizona, arrested some time before 9/11 for trying to force their way into an America West cockpit while airborne. The FBI told the 9/11 commission that they suspected this was a dry run; one student has since gone to Afghanistan, while the other was held as a material witness.

Still think there is nothing to the dry run idea?

As for Shanin himself, he leads a mosque in Arizona and admitted to the Arizona Republic shortly after 9/11 that he is a one-time supporter of bin Laden. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Hani Hanjour, who piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon, attended Shanin's Tucson mosque along with bin Laden’s onetime personal secretary. Bin Laden’s ex-logistics chief was president of the mosque before Shahin took over.

Right, Patrick, it's all hot air. Keep telling yourself that.

. . . does not make one a terrorist, unless you think the U.S. is a terrorist country. After all, we all used to support Bin Laden through our tax dollars. Then again . . .

Okay, I will admit that I tossed in the Easter Bunny just to attract attention, but I think you get my point! Patrick's article is another fine analysis of what happens when mediocre operatives try to execute a fundamentally flawed policy. All our woes stem from the nonsensical 'War on Terror'. As many observers pointed out, terror is a tactic, and you can't declare war on a tactic. As one critic put it, it would be like calling the Pacific theater in WW2 "The War on Japanese planes". Of course, post 9-11 it seemed unpatriotic to criticize even this level of fuzzy nonsense, so off we were.

Next was the creation of the bloated TSA and the beginning of a non-stop campaign to make flying hell. A slew of ridiculous rules were put in place to prevent a crime that could not be repeated. I think we all realize what would happen to a group of guys with box cutters or some other pointy objects who announced "We are taking over this plane...". The few remaining freedoms and creature comforts flyers enjoyed are being relentlessly stripped away and every failed whacko 'plot' generates a new list of restrictions.

Even if the TSA was an elite force it couldn't compensate for the strategic errors of our anti-terror efforts, and it certainly isn't that. On top of poor execution of a poor plan we have to deal with the endless stream of government induced paranoia: the whole world is out to get us!; all Muslim men are potential enemies; etc., etc., etc. A huge bureaucracy with irrational rules is nearly impossible to stop so I don't have much hope, but reasonable rules reasonably applied would be a dramatic improvement over the status quo. Who knows….flying might even become fun again!

(5% of Muslims in America actually support al Qaeda, according to the poll!)

5% of people taking a poll will agree that the polltaker is a Martian. You have to be very careful about drawing any conclusions at all about any poll numbers below 20% or so, and particularly poll numbers in the range of the margin of error. At 5% of the typical sampling size for this sort of poll, you're now putting weight on responses from people who want to shock the polltaker, who had a horrible day and want to let it out on someone, who are annoyed at being polled and want to sabotage the poll, who didn't even understand what was asked, etc.

That statistic is essentially meaningless.

The 25% number is more meaningful, and I could go into speculation about why Muslims may feel that way for reasons other than "they want to blow up our planes," but that's a topic for another article.

Well, I suppose a lot of pilots and aircrew are foreigners (especially on foreign airlines), and there is always the possibility that a suicide bomber might disguise himself as a pilot. (Surely they could not be so devious!)

What beats me is having to take off my shoes and belt to go through security at Miami en route to Santo Domingo, but not having to do it for the return journey on THE SAME PLANE.

If terrorists announce that they have a bomb disguised as a brassiere, then...

But to be serious, isn't the real truth that all the security checks are just a kind of PR to reassure the traveling public that Uncle Sam is taking good care of his own? Any capable terrorist would find a workaround.

Oh dear God, Patrick, you've put into print what I have been saying for years, to anyone who'll listen. I fly a fair amount - over 50,000 miles a year - and am horrified, knowing as I stand shoeless in a TSA line - that cans of Coke, laden with explosives, could be loading on to the plane by unchecked workers. Horrified, or amused, or both, actually, as I stand in stocking feet, with my baggie filled with exact 3oz bottles of mouthwash.

All this checking of the passengers and crew mean nothing without checking the flight service personel loading the plane.

Like most everything else in this incompetent administration, its all sound and fury and no actual thinking.