The western world now lives under threat of terrorism in our daily life.
It is time to send in the pigs: the four-footed, pink-skinned, bristly, snorting, smelly, smart, truffle-sniffing barnyard critters that are a source of the famed Canadian back bacon.
Why should airports and airlines be spending billions on screening devices and security delays? A few well-trained pigs and good handlers will do the job twice as fast, and be trained in half the time.
There is a pig bomb-sniffing specialist and he thinks bomb-sniffing pigs are the cat’s meow. He works out of Israel, but his pigs don’t.
Both Jews and Muslims think pigs are unclean — but for Jews, pigs are only unclean to eat. For Muslims, they are also unclean to touch.
Since Israelis actually respect Jewish and Muslim religious sensitivities about pigs, no porkers have been fielded there in the fight against terrorism. Yet, it has been proven that pigs are better than dogs at finding weapons, drugs and explosives.
To date, pigs have been used in less human-friendly areas, like seaports, to search for drugs and bombs. Rather than the recent Christmas chaos caused by the Underwear Bomber, rather than the death and destruction had the plot been successful, we foolishly resist this low-tech detection of terrorists.
A porcine pal could solve it all in seconds.
Not only are pigs’ noses more sensitive, most Muslims, even those who are homicidally about to explode, would run from the thought of trying to blast off into hyper-space. If there was even an iota of risk that a pig might come in contact with them before or after — no paradise. No virgins.
Planes could also be equipped with a friendly steward pig to greet you at the door — one of those cute little pot bellied fellows that can be taught to poop in kitty litter.
Any believer set on blowing themselves up would probably turn and run at the thought of their remains mingling with that of both infidels and swine.
Canada is not in a position to put up fancy X-ray screening devices everywhere. Beside, they don’t spot explosive loaded condoms. But we could bring in a few thousand pigs — and think of the boost it would give swine farms after the recent H1N1 flu (formerly swine flu, if you recall).
Pigs might be way more effective than air marshalls or security guards and if killed while on duty, pig deaths would be much less traumatic for the nation.
We could probably send some to Afghanistan to help rout the Taliban.
Pigs are certainly the type of low-tech weaponry that Canada can contribute in quantity to the global fight against terrorism.
We are being defeated by a lack of imagination in this war on terror.
Instead of clamping down, we need to lighten up and be as inventive as the enemy is in identifying and targeting our the weak points in our defence. And we need to go on offence — even if the thought of it offends our multi-cultural gang.
The stakes are too high to be ‘high on the hog’ about a pig patrol. We should give every potential solution a fair trial.
Michelle Stirling-Anosh is a Ponoka freelance columnist.