Don't launch bombs from your jewels, Umar!

Pinky Khoabane: In the latest and perhaps lowest show of contempt for men's genitalia, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab chose to use - wait for it - his private parts as a launch pad to blow up an aircraft travelling from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.

He waited until the jet was approaching its destination before he thought to pull the trigger from his knickers, as it were.

Just as the 200 passengers on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 were thinking they had arrived safely and had begun contemplating their Christmases - no doubt with loved ones - Abdulmutallab allegedly went to the toilet, returned to his seat and complained of stomach cramps before covering himself with a blanket and beginning the process of igniting the bomb.

In much the same way as his boss, al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, uses the treacherous mountains of Afghanistan to avoid detection by the West, this young Nigerian thought to use his jewels to hide the explosive device from airport security.

I mean, using them to hide the explosives is one thing, but using them to also detonate the bomb? This is devoid of logic to me. After all, these devices (the bombs, that is) can fail to explode. What happens to your private parts then - which is what I, and many normal-thinking people around the world have been wondering since news of this attack broke.

Forget about the fake concerns regarding his childhood and his financial and emotional state. "Was he lonely?" the gurus keep asking. Who cares? All the world wants to know is what is happening down there.

Details of what is left of the organs have not been disclosed, but you have to wonder what this man is smoking. You would have thought he and his bosses would have learnt something from the shoe bomber, Richard Reid, whose explosives were made from the same chemical (PETN) used by Abdulmutallab above Detroit. Both bombs failed to explode.

To be honest, it isn't just the leftover organs that have been occupying my mind. The planning of this project and the entire thinking abilities of the al-Qaeda cell in Yemen is questionable.

If these men had learnt anything from the shoe bomber, it should have been the impact the failed terror attack had on air travel. Passengers had to undergo the humiliation of removing their shoes and all forms of footwear before being allowed on a plane.

Now, if Abdulmutallab's threats of more airline bombers are to be believed, how does the prospect of a naked terrorist or one without underwear and shoes fit into the bigger plan to use planes for attacks on America?

Furthermore, the plotters should have known that airport security would be intensified once their modus operandi was discovered, rendering future underwear bombing plans useless.

And indeed, tough security measures akin to those imposed after the 9/11 attacks have already been put in place. There's also talk of a screening process using scanners that will strip passengers right down to the genitals.

I'm also struggling to imagine men - and conservative ones at that - huddled in a cave (isn't that where these terror plans are supposed to be devised?) saying to one another: "We are in agreement gentlemen. Yes, the best hiding place would be your undies, son." I can't see it, hence my question: what happened to the sanctity of men's genitalia?

I have said it in this column before and I will say it again!

There is a growing tendency to disrespect what in my day was regarded as a "precious and delicate commodity".

As anybody who has studied elementary biology knows, the male organs are very sensitive and require comfort and breathing space. Well, at least that's what my high school biology teacher kept harping on about, but it seems he may have been wrong - or these organs have undergone major transformation over the years.

You need only look at today's men's undergarments to see the scorn with which these so-called jewels are being treated.

The loose-fitting Y-briefs have been replaced by the skimpiest and tightest of underpants and the sensitivities with which these delicate commodities used to be handled is a thing of the past.

If it's not cricket players constantly rubbing the ball against them, in what I prefer to call serious ball tampering, you have the likes of Abdulmutallab shoving bombs down them.

Whichever way you may want to look at this young terrorist, he has changed some aspects of how we view the world today.

> Read more columnists