Diplomatic immunity has been around for centuries but only codified in international law since the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations was drawn up in 1961. Diplomatic immunity originally developed as a guarantee that international contacts could be maintained even during armed conflict between two nations. One enjoying diplomatic immunity is immune to lawsuits and prosecutions in the host country, and the immunity can be withdrawn only at the behest of diplomat's own country usually under extremely serious circumstances. Carelessness is not one of them. The incident involving the Qatari diplomat on the American airliner flying from Washington, DC to Denver, Colorado easily falls into the category of carelessness, however. The diplomat broke rules and laws by sneaking into the bathroom during the flight to smoke a cigarette. When questioned about what he had been doing in the bathroom, he responded that he was trying to light his shoe on fire, a direct reference to the attempted shoe-bombing on a flight arriving into Detroit on December 25. First, no smoking on flights has been a law in the US for decades and on international flights for almost just as long. No one has been proven immune from that law as significant line of celebrities and others have been marched before a judge for violating it. Second, given the general paranoia that hounds the air industry, any mention of a bomb or other means of attacking an airliner is outright prohibited. Countless innocent people have been detained when they found that an ill-considered attempt at humor while waiting in the ticketing line constituted a threat. The Qatari diplomat was certainly fully aware of these prohibitions and clearly chose to hide behind diplomatic immunity, a hallowed tradition for very good reasons, while flaunting not only a local law but the safety of fellow airline passengers. His actions led to the scrambling of two fighter jets to escort the airliner to Denver and additional security measures once the plane was on the ground. Diplomats, more than anyone else, should be aware of the security issues involved in air travel today and have no business flaunting them like spoiled children. __
