The Stinking Slum Of Our Hygiene Fears
by pessimist
Osama must be partying this weekend. His strategy of exploiting our weaknesses, carefully thought out while hiding in caves without CNN or FAUX 'Newz' to distract the process, generally wins even when it loses [uncited quotes following are also from this article]:
The Islamic terrorists were successful despite being caught. They managed to virtually close down Heathrow airport to outgoing flights, instill tight security procedures worldwide, hurt the profits of airlines (many of whom are struggling financially), lower the value of stocks, and raise oil prices. The terrorists succeeded in grinding air travel to crawl.
The effects of the London bomb plot attest to that. Now, one cannot even transport the necessities of personal Western hygiene onto an airplane! And those poor slobs who run the expensive-square-footage shops at the airports have just been denied the right to sell half of their inventory to travellers who forgot theirs in the rush to pack and get through security to make the flight on time! That stinks!
So much for Free Enterprise!
Flying itself is becoming such an inconvenience! It's beginning to make personal long-distance driving look good again, even with higher gas prices. You can't bring your own drinking liquids anymore, subjecting you to enduring the shortages suffered by the airline's caterer. It's not like you can fly through Jack-in-the-Box!
But I digress.
They used to say that using the airlines to travel was safer than driving to the airport. That is not necessarily true anymore:
Although the police and intelligence work in arresting the would-be bombers was first-rate, we can't count on them to uncover every possible plot. Because of the foiled terrorist plot, carry-ons and liquids are now banned on flights. Are we safer? Maybe for a brief time, but definitely not for the long haul. The fact that security services figured out the liquid explosive angle only challenges Islamic terrorists to come up with other, more creative ways to foil airport security.
It's like a chess game with only check, but no checkmate.
Our disgruntled 'security expert' plays into Osama's game plan and blames our way of life for this:
The commitment of Western nations to democracy and civil rights means that its citizens will necessarily experience a certain degree of risk. Democracy requires all people to be treated equally -- something the terrorists depend on -- which mitigates against profiling. EL AL openly profiles passengers, forcing political correctness to take a back seat to protecting life.
He's only thinking about the welfare of the airlines - I mean, the airline passengers:
Profiling is not enough. Airline travelers will suffer due to a political ideology that refuses to differentiate between those that pose a high risk and ordinary citizens. In following this policy, average citizens and the economy suffer, and the terrorists will have achieved their goal.
So what does our 'expert' propose to do about the evils of profiling and still catch the bad guys before they can act?
that can help separate the potentially dangerous from the innocent.
What are we talking about here, Minority Report?
Such 'able' technology doesn't yet exist - luckily - but there is only one problem with his demand: the Department of Homeland Security, which is too busy grandstanding before the media to field test Japanese liquid-explosive detection technology that has been in use for years at Narita Airport in Tokyo. They have been introduced to the machine's capabilities, but can't seem to find the wherewithal to spend funds allocated by Congress for purchasing copies for use in American airports. It makes one think that DHS is stalling in order to buy time for an American firm to figure out a way to do the same thing without sending millions to Japan.
But I digress.
Our author 'expert' is about to fall into another trap laid out by Osama in his quest to destroy Western democracy:
How should government balance its obligation to civil law while protecting the lives of its citizens? In other words, how much civil liberties are citizens willing to forego for security?
Time to play to fright card:
Widespread sting operations won't significantly lower the threat if we continue to allow terrorists to hide behind civil liberties and cries of discrimination.
We could defuse the explosive situation by removing the justifications for their terror attacks from the world scene [such as Israel's destruction of Lebanon], but empires can't be seen as retreating! Thus, another way must be found to solve the problem of terrorism without surrendering one square hectare of land, or one barrel of oil!
Let's see now ... OK, let's convince the people that if they trade freedom for safety and security, things will be better - right?
WRONG!
There is no way to ensure safety even if all civil liberties are surrendered.
All it takes to make terror work is to claim that a threat exists. A man thought to have a gun on a Greyhound bus shutdown a portion of I-95 in Florida. Fewer people made it to Disney World that day, lowering Disney's earnings.
Closer to home, public transportation can't be protected. Searching the lunch bags of NYC subway riders for explosives (other than the horseradish sauce from the deli) is only a PR gimmick, because any terrorists seeking to wreak havoc, and who don't want to undergo a search, can simply walk to another station to enter the subways.
Authorities are fooling themselves by thinking that determined operatives would be deterred by the 'sporadic nature of the inspections'. Such an adjustment would easily be compensated in the planning, in part because the American taxpayers won't fund enough jobs for subway bag inspectors if it means surrendering tax 'relief'. And, as the 2005 London bombers demonstrated, they could always plan to take the bus. Blowing up a bus would make New York's already horrendous traffic problems even worse - for days!
And, they wouldn't have to target a bus by riding it. They could do as is done in Baghdad and Kabul by driving up next to it to detonate their bomb. Suppose instead of a bus, they choose a truck carrying flammable or toxic materials?
I could go on and on, but I think you can see that effective defensive planning against terror attack is an unending task - and may be impossible.
Speaking of such impossible planning, airport security 'experts' aren't even seen as dealing with potential realistic threats, such as liquid explosives - or air cargo bombs, or shoulder-fired missiles. [Dare we leave the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle off the threat list? Der Governator says NO!] Instead of dealing with such readily-available threats, the 'experts' are still focused on preventing 9/11-style hijackings.
But even dealing with the 'threats we think we know' over 'the lack of threats we wish we had' is proving to be a bureaucratic nightmare, and the costs of detection machines are high - both in terms of delivery delay and purchase price. As a result, stop-gaps are in place, and the London krash krewe probably would have gotten through the security krush in an American airport anyway.
Our 'experts' are also too often looking in the wrong direction for 'likely suspects'. While tightly focused [legitimately!]on locating the missing Egyptian college students, are they ignoring the homegrown variety?
There are only so many security personnel to go around. With security so tightly focused on airports, there isn't enough to cover other public facilities. For example, tourists in the nation's capital are under terror assault from local gang thugs, and the prospects for more domestic terrorists being created just grew the other day with the release of yet another violent anti-social video game - 'a whimsical boarding-school romp' (described as 'humorous') where violence by teen characters is used to 'deal with' problems the adults can't seem to solve.
Like in real life?
But bring on those bomb-sniffing dogs! Wrest away my Crest, ban my Ban, and make Granny take off her sneakers!
We'll ignore that some game-addled gangbanger looking to score props by capping the airport drive-by style - or worse - has nothing confronting him to prevent him from doing so.
Yeah, I feel safer from terrorism already!
Copyrighted [©] source material contained in this article is presented under the provisions of Fair Use.
FAIR USE NOTICE
This article contains copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of democracy, economic, environmental, human rights, political, scientific, and social justice issues, among others. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this article is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes.
