Danger as a way of life

In Russia, hundreds of children were taken hostage, held in a school gym for days without food or water before the killing started.

In Jakarta yesterday, a car bomb exploded, this time in front of the Australian embassy. Set off at 10:30 a.m. on a busy weekday, the bomb was meant to take out as many victims and destroy as much of the embassy as possible. As of early last night there were eight dead; over 160 were wounded.

Many analysts have warned that terrorism entered an even more dangerous phase following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 in New York and Washington, the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the dispersal of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network around the globe.

The warning is that terrorists will go for even more high-impact attacks and aim for maximum casualties to grab the world’s attention. This they can easily achieve by going after "soft" targets: nightclubs, hotels, even a school. Never mind if the casualties are children, or hundreds of train commuters as in Madrid, or club patrons as in Bali, Indonesia.

Embassies – especially those of countries belonging to the US-led coalition in Iraq – are not exactly soft targets. Governments (including ours) have received ample warning for months about possible attacks on embassies, especially with the approach of the anniversary of 9/11. Embassies have presumably fortified security, especially in countries such as Indonesia, considered the base of Jemaah Islamiyah.

But it’s been said often enough that there is no surefire protection against a determined terrorist. Australia, which lost 88 of its citizens in the nightclub bombings in Bali in October 2002, is a particularly prized target, being one of the staunchest allies (in word and deed) of Washington in the war on terror.

And so yesterday we were once again given a tragic reminder of how much the world has changed, and how dangerous it has remained, three years after 9/11.

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George W. Bush, campaigning for a second term as US president, promised Americans a safer world. He also said the war on terror could not be won, but later clarified that it was not what he had meant.

Every year, at around the anniversary of 9/11, the question is always asked: Is the world a safer place? The Bush White House can at least tell Americans that there has been no terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11.

But what about the rest of the world?

No jetliner has been smashed into another national landmark anywhere by suicide hijackers, although the near-simultaneous crashes of two commercial planes in Russia about two weeks ago have been described as terrorist attacks.

When you are up against an amorphous enemy, it’s hard to quantify the gains. You can’t claim victory for attacks prevented. You can trot out to the public so many captured top terrorists, only to find out that they have been quickly replaced in the hierarchy of terror.

Jemaah Islamiyah was believed to have been decapitated, but the latest bombing in Jakarta is now seen as the group’s handiwork. Security officials fear that Southeast Asia is in danger of turning into a base for international terrorists.

Iraq is no man’s land and is becoming a new base for Islamist militants. Saddam Hussein’s brutal reign ended, but he has not been linked to al-Qaeda or 9/11, and no weapon of mass destruction has been found. The war set back international cooperation in the war on terror.

Bush critics are now saying that he got his country wrong on involvement in 9/11; it was Iran, not Iraq. Bush, in recent interviews, continued to defend the attack, arguing that the only way to win the war on terror is to spread freedom.

Since 9/11 the world has had the attacks in Bali, Madrid, and the one at the JW Marriott hotel also in Jakarta.

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Yet around the globe thousands of suspected terrorists have been apprehended. Many are in detention; several have been eliminated. No one can say how many attacks have been foiled with their neutralization.

International travel has recovered due to stringent security measures, and most people don’t mind the inconvenience. Senate President Franklin Drilon once resented being asked to take off his pair of Ferragamos at a US airport. Now you hear no protest over stringent requirements including biometric data for a US visa.

A few weeks after 9/11 I boarded a domestic flight in the United States with several Asian colleagues, including an Indian and a Sri Lankan. Those were early days when Americans thought Sikhs with turbans were Muslims. Our American guide complained loudly that she had booked our window and aisle seats three months in advance, so why the sudden change?

I never thought it was random seating selection on the American carrier that placed all of us foreigners along a row of center seats, sandwiched between burly Americans. There were vacant seats all around us but no one transferred throughout the flight. The Americans probably thought someone might need tackling during the flight, while we didn’t relish the thought of getting our arms twisted on our way to the toilet. We resented it, but we were just as paranoid about the Americans about air safety so we grinned and bore it.

We have to remember that Washington launched a federal air marshal program only on Sept. 11, 1970; air marshals became permanent fixtures only in 1985. The US Senate categorized airline hijacking as a criminal offense only in September 1971. Inspection of carry-on baggage and scanning of airline passengers started only in 1973.

These days airline security precautions have become more sophisticated. But now we worry about planes being hit by surface-to-air missiles on takeoff or landing.

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And we worry about many other things besides. My favorite teacher in sausage making, Leni Reynoso Araullo, recalls a relative being among the passengers during one of the earliest airline hijackings. All the passengers were left unharmed. Back then, Leni said, the prospect of a hijacking even promised excitement and a visit to another country.

That was the Age of Innocence. These days you need to make peace with your Maker if your plane is hijacked.

These days you even need to make peace with your Maker when you enter a nightclub or hotel or go to work near an embassy.

For the world, three years after 9/11, danger has become a way of life.