There was an attack in Saudi Arabia using internally placed explosives up the lower GI tract. These explosives cannot be detected by pat downs, metal detectors, or millimeter wave machines. Much more powerful scanning machines would be required or a cavity search. But no follow up bombs have happened using this method. I’d always wondered why. Now things are becoming clear. Apparently there’s been something of a theological problem. It appears that butt bombs are not permitted due to Islam’s prohibition of sodomy. But that prohibition seems to be loosening.
It will take years for the theologians to digest this new complication but once it has been let loose, it is clearly foreseeable that some portion of islamic scholars will hold this position. The consequences for our travel security regime are rather scary. We’re going to have reached the end of the line because routine x-rays at each flight segment are just not going to happen. The accumulated radiation would cause too many cancers. And cavity searches are simply unreasonable. So where does that leave TSA’s current security strategy?
Like most of their terror innovations, I expect that this will take some time for them to organize. It looks like they’ve already put 4 years into it. It may take them another 4 before they’ve worked the theological problems out sufficient to recruit bombers. But then what?