Originally Posted by docmonkey
With hardened cockpit doors and a policy to not cooperate with hijackers, air travel is already amazingly safe. Inspecting all cargo would make it safer.
The added ID check training from your hypothetical may not save one life. In fact, these security measures might increase the cost and hassle of air travel so much that some people would choose to drive instead. Since driving is much more dangerous, your hypothetical security scenario might cause more travel deaths and injuries.
If you really wanted to make air travel safer, you would suggest spending less money on ID checks and more money on cargo screening, air traffic controllers, runway improvements, maintenance inspections, etc.
When the costs and benefits of security are weighed rationally, only people who are truly paranoid about terrorism believe that more ID checks are needed, since money spent on ID checks comes at the expense of other safety measures.
I'm definitely interested in hearing more analysis of the case at hand, but what's unreasonable about my thinking?
Nothing is unreasonable about your thinking. Your analysis of Kabuki security is dead on (pun intended). TSA has fixated on passengers for two reasons:
1) Passengers perpetrated 9/11, so it is going to prevent that - fighting the last war.
2) Leisure travelers see the checkpoint dog and pony show and are impressed with the measures that Big Brother is taking to protect them. However, they are blissfully unaware of the holes in the system, namely unscreened cargo transported on their airliners (think Lockerbie, Air India, indeed the airliner bombed in 1947 by an @$$hole who wanted to murder his mother) and rampant unchecked access to "sterile" areas.