Ports Postscript: No Way to Security

Tonight, at a little after 6 p.m. local time, an Egyptair commercial flight will leave Cairo and fly non-stop for more than 10 hours to New York’s JFK Airport. Tomorrow, same deal. 

No one will call for a Congressional investigation, a 45-day waiting period, “more information about the deal,” or the president’s impeachment. No one will suggest that Flight 964 from Cairo is just another example of the nefarious Dick Cheney oil junta at work. 

Moreover, no one will suggest that the flight represents any kind of threat to the national security of the . But why not?
The baseline facts regarding and the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, are dramatic. The attacks were led by an Egyptian hijacker, Mohammad Atta. They were plotted by al Qaeda, whose number two in command is Egyptian terror master Ayman al-Zawaheri. The key weapons employed in the attacks were commercial airliners, crashed into vital and heavily populated targets, two of them in New York. 

More subtle links between and 9/11 are compelling. Al Qaeda has often been described as a transnational organization dominated by two national elements, “the Saudis and the Egyptians.” Often, in fact, according to terror experts, it is the “Egyptians” inside the group who argue for increased violence against the west. Also, public opinion polls gauging the broader view of the ancient nation’s large population often reveal that many Egyptians believe (1) that 9/11 was a CIA-Israeli conspiracy, but (2) that, in any case, the had it coming. 

I could go on. The Muslim Brotherhood, the feeder organization for 30+ Islamic terrorist groups, was borne in and is still headquartered there. has been used as an embarkation point for terrorists tunneling both themselves and weapons into . And, in 1999, a crazed co-pilot deliberately crashed an Egyptair New York-to-Cairo flight killing more than 200 people
Hopefully, you are catching my drift.