> But if al-Qaeda and its sympathizers could manage
> to blow up only a few airliners with PETN, they could
> have a significant negative effect on the economy and
> could very possibly drive some American airlines into
> bankruptcy.
I totally disagree with this line of reasoning. If we had *more* planes blow up, people could do the math and compare the risk to driving down the street and they would (finally!) realize that the "threat" of the last 10 years has all been in their heads. But instead, we've had *zero* which allows some people to claim that TSA did their job, but the rest of us know that both of the two examples we have of people trying to blow up planes with PETN were thwarted by alert passengers and not by security services.
/jordan