The Silence of the Lambs

We all knew al Qaeda wasn't above hitting below the belt. But an underwear bomb? They really stooped to new lows this time.

But there's a certain genius in the underwear bomb, whether or not it succeeded as a weapon, given the American propensity to overreact to each new terror tactic. We all had to start taking off our shoes at airports after the failed shoe bombing. Now, presumably, TSA screening efforts will focus on our underwear. What new humiliations and indignities will follow, one can only imagine.

Al Qaeda may be as interested in inflicting mass humiliation on America as mass casualties: stripping away our last shred of dignity, along with our clothes, may be the group's ultimate goal. When we're all forced by TSA to board airplanes wearing nothing but hospital gowns -- our ass checks hanging out there, exposed to the elements, in order to better accomodate the body cavity search -- that will be the end of America as we know it. We'll have been reduced by al Qaeda to a nation of bleating sheep, all the better to be led off to slaughter -- a people who will bow to (or bend over for) each new security measure, no matter how humiliating, idiotic or pointless, even while the federal bureaucrats in charge of homeland security are bumbling and fumbling with our lives.

TSA is a lot like "the great and powerful Oz" -- all smoke-and-mirrors bluster, meant to awe and bamboozle the boobs. And as long as we pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, and passively and mindlessly comply with the Wizard's demands, the flimsy illusion called "homeland security" can be maintained.