Word: one
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...definition, terrorism succeeds by making us feel powerless. It is more often a psychological threat than an existential one. The authorities compound the damage when they overreact - by subjecting grandmothers to pat-downs and making it intolerable to travel. Even though the Christmas bombing suspect had been stopped, stripped and cuffed before the plane landed, we still talk like victims. "[This] came close to being one of the greatest tragedies in the history of our country," New York Congressman Peter King said on CNN, criticizing Obama for not holding a press conference sooner...
...Karen Sherrouse was a flight attendant on the jet that Richard Reid tried to blow up. When one of her colleagues tried to stop Reid, Sherrouse rushed to help. But she couldn't get down the aisle because so many passengers had already joined the melee. "They were instantly on him," she remembers. "It was a group effort." And so it should be. The flight attendants can't be everywhere at once. Nor can TSA officers...
...After the passengers of Flight 253 deplaned in Detroit, they were held in the baggage area for more than five hours until FBI agents interviewed them. They were not allowed to call their loved ones. They were given no food. When one of the pilots tried to use the bathroom before a bomb-sniffing dog had finished checking all the carry-on bags, an officer ordered him to sit down, according to passenger Alain Ghonda, who thought it odd. "He was the pilot. If he wanted to do anything, he could've crashed the plane." It was a metaphor...
...Ghonda, leaped up, hopscotched across the middle section of seats and threw himself on top of the bomber, shouting at his fellow passengers to pass water bottles and blankets his way. Other passengers screamed; some ran to other cabins. "I don't want to die! I want out!" yelled one. Two flight attendants, alarmed by the smell of smoke, rushed past the dozens of passengers out of their seats to find fire extinguishers. They doused Abdulmutallab and Schuringa as well as the burning seat, the floor, the walls and the surrounding area. Abdulmutallab, his pants torched, naked from waist...
...methods for tracking terrorists still aren't working It turns out that Washington's way of ranking likely terrorists, which was overhauled after Sept. 11, still resembles a Rube Goldberg contraption. There are four different U.S. terrorism databases, and yet Abdulmutallab's name never rose above the least threatening one...