bj....did you really see that happen to an elderly lady with a walker....or are you just bull-shirting us to make a point?
By the way....I spent an entire summer in the Middle East...where EVERY airport security agent takes the threat of terrorism VERY seriously. That was in '93. After spending a month in Cairo, my group crossed into Israel at Eilat. You haven't SEEN security until you've been to Israel.
After a month in the Egyptian sun, touring archaeological sites, I was deeply tanned and bearded. My head had been shaved to the point of baldness before I left the states. I was dressed conservatively like most of the people of that region. Some of my own group said I looked like a middle-aged arab.
During that summer sojourn, Israeli security went through my bags in London, Ben Gurion airport, at Eilat, and in Ben Gurion again when we departed Tel Aviv for our connection in Athens......where Greek security went through them again.
The Egyptians weren't any more lax than the Israelis. I went through one security check point near Luxor three times, setting off the metal detector every time I went through it...even after emptying my pockets of all coins, odds and ends metallic and various accoutrements. I was expecting to be strip searched at that point, until they decided that it was the metal eyelets on my hiking boots that were setting off the alarm.
Yet, I didn't gripe and moan and whine and belly-ache about it. They had very GOOD reasons for being that thorough.....as do our own security agents, whether spoiled Americans are ready to admit it or not.
Six years without a repeat of 911 has put our people back to sleep again....