OPINION:
The mainstream media pile-on of the Department of Homeland Security for its directive banning laptops, tablets and other electronic devices on direct flights from cities in eight predominately Muslim countries to the United States follows a familiar pattern.
The Department of Homeland Security says the ban is based on security concerns. Hours later, Britain issued a similar directive. Canada said it, too, is considering restrictions on laptops in carry-on luggage.
Nevertheless, familiar voices called the ban a plot masterminded by President Trump to harass Muslim business travelers. Whoever heard of somebody named Mohammed inflicting terrorism on anybody, silly?
“Trump’s laptop ban isn’t just misguided and xenophobic,” raged Slate, the liberal online newsmagazine. “It’s a giant middle finger to business travelers.”
The Washington Post, quoting two political-science professors, speculates that the ban “served Trump’s agenda” of protectionism and has nothing to do with security. “Three of the airlines that have been targeted for these measures — Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways — have long been accused by their U.S. competitors of receiving massive effective subsidies from their governments. These airlines have been quietly worried for months that President Trump was going to retaliate. This may be the retaliation.”
NBC News and The Associated Press questioned the need for the ban, since their reporting uncovered no specific security threats. “This is something they could have decided to do last month, or never,” an unidentified U.S. official told NBC News. “There is no new critical piece of intelligence, but at the same time there are bad people trying to do bad things.”
The Associated Press quoted “U.S. and British officials” who said the decision to bar laptops and tablets from the cabins of some international flights wasn’t based on any specific threat, but on longstanding concerns about terrorists targeting jetliners.”
Other newspapers disagreed. The London Daily Mail reported the ban “is based on intelligence about an ISIS plot to target the West gathered during the raid on Yemen in which a Navy SEAL was killed. The threat was judged by the United States to be ’substantiated’ and ’credible.’ The intelligence centered on al Qaeda’s ’successful development’ of compact battery bombs that fit inside laptops or other devices.”
“Information from the [Yemen] raid shows al Qaeda’s successful development of compact, battery bombs that fit inside laptops or other devices believed to be strong enough to bring down an aircraft,” the Daily Beast reported. “The battery bombs would need to be manually triggered, a source explained, which is why the electronics ban is only for the aircraft cabin and not checked luggage.” Al Qaeda bomb makers are believed to be working on hiding bombs in even smaller devices then laptops.
These explanations are much more plausible than the notion that President Trump wants to punish Muslim travelers or take revenge against Gulf airlines for unfair competition with American carriers. Certain newspapers and television networks nevertheless take reasonable suspicion of migrants from the Middle East as proof of an aversion to Muslims.
The terror-exporting nations of the Middle East, first identified by the Obama administration, made their reputation long before Donald Trump arrived in Washington. Cracking down on blue-haired Lutheran ladies from Minnesota, or Episcopal clerics from California, might relieve the fears of the politically correct, but a president or prime minister responsible for the safety of constituents does not have the luxury of entertaining fantasies. They must deal with the world as it is.
Air travel was once glamorous and even touched with a trace of romance, and the threat of radical Islamic violence changed all that. The Boeing or Airbus has all the glamour now of a streetcar, and the fault lies not in the stars, but in the hearts of evil men.
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