Look: I’m no military strategist or historian. I have spent no time in any standing army or paramilitary organization. But, as a citizen civilian I have some questions.
First, what next?
Are we all going to be subjected to underwear checks before boarding our flights? If so, Al-Qaeda will soon secrete explosives in body cavities. Will we all be searched there as well? Will the time it takes to travel coast to coast or continent to continent soon approximate medieval travel times?
Is there another, easier way to deal with global terrorism in airports, on trains, and on ships? Might that way involve “profiling?” If so, is it still more important in terms of western values and law that we continue to seriously inconvenience or endanger the majority in order not to collectively punish the presumably innocent-until-proven-guilty minority?
What minority? Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion in the world and currently comprises 1.2-1.3 billion people. I guess I’m talking about the Muslim minority in the West most of whom are not actively involved with terrorism or with known terrorist groups. Or are they? Does anybody really know?
C’mon: The minute I heard that someone had attempted to blow up a plane over Michigan on Christmas Day I did not think: “Oh, the Buddhists (or the neo-Nazi right-wingers) are at it again. We all knew that it was, without doubt, a Muslim terrorist.
So, here are some questions.
Why are we still allowing Muslims from non-western foreign countries to fly into Western countries? Please note: I am not talking about “race” but about a highly politicized “faith.” And, what shall we do about the West’s own homegrown Islamist terrorists? Ground them all? Why not?
Why are we trying Muslim Islamist terrorists who have been captured in battle against us as if they were American citizens, fully entitled to the protection of the American constitution? Why do we want the American taxpayer to fund the care and feeding, not to mention the expensive legal talent for all the obviously guilty Gitmo graduates?
Phyllis
This is a puzzle. Profiling is one necessary measure but also just a lot more effecient and careful surveillance and cross-checking.
Now in Auckland international airport all passengers to the USA are separated in the departure lounges and must expect at least one extra hour of inspections and interviews.
One would graciously and thankfully submit to these extras if we could be assured that the inspectors knew what they were doing.
The airport officials at Schiphol in Holland should have picked up on the latest Nigerian would-be terroist on at least two counts: his lack of any luggage for a flight from Lagos to Detroit and his failure to get clearance to return to the UK as a student.
Happy New Yearm, everyone.
Norman
Our freedoms should NOT be diminished by the actions of the terrorists but ARE being diminished by the action and inactions of our government. This terrorist was already on the terrorist watch list. It’s our government that failed us. Our liberties would NOT have to be limited if these agencies would do what we’re paying them to do – PROTECT US, SECURE THE NATION, BE MINDFUL OF OUR SAFETY and for heaven’s sake – KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE TERRORISTS, AS ONLY YOU KNOW WHO AND WHERE THEY ARE and, especially, WHERE THEY SHOULD NOT BE.
I know – me too. And all the sheep citizens saying yes we will sit in our seats for hours and go naked to our destinations because we want to be safe but G-d forbid we detain Muslims, people traveling from terror sanctuaries and burqa clad slaves of Islam because that would be (shudder) discrimination. The real problem is Gitmo so let’s send the inhabitants to Yemen. How can our citizens buy this BS? I do not get it. And the turd was on a watch list. Nepolitano is as culpable in Homeland security as was Brown in Katrina but where is the outcry? Obama’s female frontmen are safe fronts for him. When BO consults after these incidents, it is always with a bunch of men but he sends his female fronts out to cover his stupidity and incompetence. They justify and reassure. If there is real trouble they will take the blame for him. and they will deserve it.
On a better note, I think there is real hope in Iran with the people’s revolution. Not that our Muslim king will help them because after all, slavery is a choice.
I agree!
As an American I appreciate “freedom” and “privacy”, but if reading my email and stopping me down at the corner to check my ID will help catch just one of those murderous monsters, I say GO TO IT!!
I don’t think body-cavity searches are needed at this point in history. Bombs are not that small. As for pat-down and wand searches, I have experienced both, and although I found them an inconvenience, I appreciated the desire of the searchers to be careful. Better safe than sorry.
Another thing – what the hell is wrong with Amsterdam? Another Nigerian coming through from Amsterdam. What is their excuse?
Profiling would not have stopped the members of the Japanese Red Army who got on a plane in Tokyo in 1972 and started shooting passers-by at the Ben Gurion airport when they got off the plane. Most of their victoms turned out to be Puerto Rican Christian pilgrims, but sine the terrorists were willing to die themselves, they would certainly have been happy to kill Christians if that was part of their attempt to kill Jews.
Since they didn’t use bombs, they were not suicide bombers, but they probably were the first suicide murderers in the history of Israel’s existence. And, as is always the case, their suicidal murderousness served no strategic or military purpose whatsoever.
Use sniffer dogs – muslims hate dogs and might think twice before attaching explosive devices to their bodies if they thought such explosives would be sniffed out. I feel sure that the travelling public would not mind this. Secondly in my experience whilst travelling frequently through Amsterdam to the Middle East whilst going through security checkes, hijabs are not removed and most of the time neither are jackets for muslim women, and this should change immediately and can done behind a screen by a non-muslim female security officer. If I have to remove my shoes and jacket, the same should apply to all muslims who are the most likely to hide explosives and this could well happen in the future. Profiling is long overdue.
Perhaps our government does not understand that their job is to protect the American people not to “take care of” the American people! Instead of considering those Americans who disagree with them or did not vote for them as “the enemy,” or “the folks,” (aka those we would like to put into reeducation camps,) I suggest they look to where the real danger lies.
I am in Israel at the moment and amd worried about the Shalit deal. Some of the names forwarded by Hamas are cold blooded killers, one in prison for five life sentences (he was only convicted on five but it could well have been 24!). Again I wonder where are the so called moderate muslims who hide and never speak out? Yes, a few of them do now and then but not enough. If any member of my tribe (Israel and the Jewish Diaspora) did anything like that, I would be the first to complain! And believe me, in my family, we did debate, lol
This however is NO laughing matter and I prefer to travel El Al which is the most secure airline in the world. They do profiling and what’s wrong with that? Is a 90 year old grandma from Tel Aviv who likely suffered under the Shoah visiting the grandkids in Canada or the US likely to be a terrorist? We need more common sense, less hysteria and and MORE real useful ways of identifying those who would do us harm. And b the way, why do we spend all this money for behavioural and forensic knowledge if we do not use it properly, sigh!
A timely a thoughtful column Phyllis!
Greenconciousness:
Here is the rub.
Let’s say that we all agreed to fly naked and be cavity searched for better safety. What would happen of course is that Muslims would get an exemption for religious reasons from this humiliation. We have seen this already where some nations or companies have tried to get rid of all religious symbols, primarily to get rid of Islamic dress, only to discover at the end of the day, that they had gotten rid of everything but Islamic dress and symbols. Muslims would fight and win discrimination suits because of the gross misunderstanding I detail below.
The problem is small, but one of thought. We have to start recognizing a simple thing. Freedom of religion does not allow religions to do what they want and be exempt from the law. It simply means you may worship a god other than in a Catholic church in a way other than by Catholic dogma and not be persecuted by the state. That is all it was ever meant to be. It was not meant to mean you could break secular law willy nilly because your religion asks you to.
Canada made a fundamental mistake when it failed to force a Seek man to make a choice between wearing his turban 24/7 and joining the RCMP. Once we decided that a Canadian federal governmental institution could be changed on the whim of someone’s religious feelings we in the western world were all screwed.
A person in a free nation is free to make choices. He can freely follow the tenants of his faith or any other ethical system but like all choices, each choice will preclude others.
This alone is a miracle of civilization. Why we allowed it to become a mirror image of previous totalitarian horrors I do not fully understand beyond the obvious Marxist ‘political correctness’ which sets so much of the agenda.
I think someone writing in the Wall Street Journal a while back had the right idea: If little green men are going around robbing banks, shouldn’t we be focusing our attention on little green men?
I had planned a trip from Canada to the UK with my granddaughter, wherein we would remain there for 3 weeks (staying in B&Bs and various hotels, ie, tourism money, folks…) but then, the first reaction to the Detroit panty bomber is to punish the customer: we will be ordered to sit in our seats, motionless I guess, for an hour before landing… well, I am cancelling this trip. All of it.
Not only because of the outrageous lack of concern for peaceful citizenry, by our overlord bureaucrats, and the swinish response by the airlines, but because I think the Yemeni AQ war is heating up, and given the terrible leadership in Washington, they are going to succeed in something terrible. So, I’m staying at home. And so is my granddaughter.
Enough of this politically correct crap! If Christians or Jews were engaged in a global campaign of terrorism, everyone boarding an airplane, train or city bus would be asked their religion and be forced to stip to the skin if they gave the “wrong” answer. No one would be raising their voices in protest of THIS sort of profiling; all that liberal guilt would go right out the window! Let’s get it straight once and for all: Judeo-Christianity is not the religion of oppression; Islam is. They even oppress each other! Do Jews kill each other over whether they are Orthodox or Reform? Do Catholic Christians throw bombs into Protestant churches? No; but Muslims kill each other over whether they are sunnis or shi’ites. Jews and Chrsitians are free to leave the faith at any time; in extreme cases, family and friends may turns their backs on them, but no one in their right mind would try to physically harm them. In Islam, it’s a tenant of the faith to kill infidels, the definition of the term being anyone who is not a muslim. Christians and Jews might look upon a daughter who loves someone outside the faith (or outside the boundreies of their family’s approval) with sorrow, perhaps even shame; muslim women may only feel what their families/captors allow them to feel, lest they be killed for bringing “dishonor” upon that family. What sane Christian or Jew would mutilate the genitals and throw acid into the faces of their daughters? If these are the actions of everyday muslims, directed against their own people, what can we expect them to do to us?
I say profile away, or keep them out of all forms of public transportation — and public life — altogether. Yeah; that includes city busses, subways, everywhere that people who wish to live, as much as possible, in peace with their fellows congregate. Islam is NOT a religion of peace. The “peace” they proclaim extends only to other Muslims, and then only to other Muslims of their particular sect. They proclaim death to everyone else everytime they open their mouths. I say, death to THEM.
I am banging my head on the table. Now they are saying the second guy is just really a sick guy. A coincidence. THIS IS A TEST GUY to see if a second real bomber would get away with the behavior after the first diversion was detected. A test just like the Muslims who went to the bathroom, prayed in the aisles and asked for seat extenders and then sued the airlines for religious discrimination when alarmed passengers complained. I think the airlines settled that for money. I don’t remember.
Terror takes many forms. Infect someone, send them sick, see what happens. Maybe biological terror is more effective. And bonus, our guy comes home because the stupid US security buys “coincidence”. Great!
This would be humorous except I keep thinking of all the money this “security” is sucking away from the screwed working class losing their homes and jobs while these security consultants enjoy the holidays in their 500,000 dollar homes and in Hawaii.
“(or the neo-Nazi right-wingers)”
That’s right. We can take it for granted that a right-wing nutcase will not likely commit a suicidal terrorist act. The Islamic nihilists have a monopoly on such behavior. Profiling is very sensible—but the politically correct establishment rejects it because it inevitably reveals that dark skinned Muslims are usually the culprits. Nothing would be said if these terrorists normally possessed blue eyes and blond hair. This nonsense is all about white race guilt.
Suggestions for stopping terrorists.
1. Get rid of the Dept. of Homeland Security. They don’t have a clue as to what they are supposed to be doing. Holding meetings is fine. It could be done by the FBI.
2. Get politics out of the FBI and Secret Service.
3. Revamp ICE to work more efficiently.
4. More bomb-sniffing/chemical sniffing dogs at al major transportation hubs – airports, trains, subways. I have lived with such a dog and they are very good.
5. Anal checks for liberals will only find their brains.
6. Change our view of jihadist support groups – i.e. affinity groups and individuals. The Palestinians pioneered in this area of transnational terrorism by using affinity groups from various communist parties, red terrorist groups (Japanese Red Army, Baader-Meinhoff Gang, IRA, ETA, Carlos the Jackal’s network, Cubans, etc).
They must be included in the Watch Lists and all government agencies involved in security must get these lists on a real-time basis. No delays, no territorial pissing contests, etc.
7. Get rid of the Democrats who have destroyed our internal security programs, including John Conyers, Charlie Rangel,Henny Stoyer, Jan Schakowsky, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, Russ Feingold, Jerold Nadler, Barney Frank, Bernie Thompson, etc.
8. Get more chemical detection machines – period.
9. Develop rational terrorist profiles. If the major happen to be Muslims, it’s their fault, not ours.
10. Execute terrorists. No constitutional rights for them. No jailing on US soil. Keep GITMO open and when cells are emptied, fill them with congressional and White House and DOJ Democrat traitors and fools.
11. Get serious about terrorism. It is about time that we do it.
12. No more stupid 9/11 Commission-like failures. I could convene a commission of sci-fi writers and get better ideas on how to fight terrorism than we got from the 9/11 farce.
The majority of the suspects held in Gitmo were not guilty of anything more than being rounded up by bounty hunters who were rewarded for handing them in.
This points to the absurdity of thinking that compromising on human rights and civil liberties will keep us safer.
It will not.
We have a serious issue (the dangers posed by Islamic extremism) to deal with, and it will not be dealt with effectively if we descend to the level of the extremists by emulating their strategies.
I love you, Max Friedman! The first rational ideas I’ve heard all day.
why there are no airlines offering muslim-free flights? I would pay even 50 percent more, if there are no muslims on board.
Max Friedmann #19: Amen to getting rid of Homeland Security. Throw FEMA into the trash can as well. Reinstate CONARC (Continental Army Command) to provide governmental physical security and the OCD (Office of Civil Defense)
to take care of the rest. These two organizations WORKED, damnit and should never have been abolished in favor of their empire-building replacements.
You can also do away with TSA. Instead, all
airports should have to purchase and maintain a multi-zillon dollar liability insurance policy against lax security at their facilities. Then let the underwriters determine what constitutes adequate security. After all, it is they who lose all their money if somebody falls down on the job. They CAN’T pass the buck, so they don’t.
Last but far from least, stop the “reverse profiling” that goes on continuously. By this I mean singling out the clearly harmless
for additional screening so that the total number of passengers so screened will meet quotas without exceeding the allowed percentages for certain ethnic/cultural/religious groups. No, I am not making this up. I have worked in aviation for a while and have seen how the computers are rigged. If two Arabs have been screened on a flight already, the screeners are required to ignore the next Arab even though he be shouting Allahu Akbar and grab Phyllis instead. At least cut that crap out if you don’t do anything else.
6. Geert Wilder arose in Holland in Response to Immigration Policies there, so relaxed as to allow a Nigerian (Immigrate) TERRORIST to get on a plane and calmly trying to let everything and EVERYONE blowing up (which is the kind of Gratitude one can expects from people benefiting of relaxed “humanitarian” Immigration Policies, where one like Geert Wilders is called a “WhiteSupremacistRacistXenophobeIslamophobeExtremeRightWingersNazistWhatever”.
9. Engaging DOGS in Security Service means that “Islamic/-ist Correctness” will forbid them to ckeck Islamic/-ist Passengers: dogs are dirty to them, and you have to “respect their Faith” (the Fact that they do not respect you, at the point to blow you up, isn’t dirty enough: it’s rather “dogs are dirtier than Terrorists”).
NEWS: Celebrations (all aound the World?) for the Anniversary of Gaza Conflict. In Gaza those Celebrations were organized by Hamas (a.k.a. The Religion Of Peace’s Activists – have a look to what’s written in their Hamas Chart). In The West those Celebrations are organized by The Greens and Socialists. Politically CORRUPT Media are reporting the News that Way: “Remembering the Attack of Israel against Palestinians”.
[It's a Nightmare: how can we expect Terrorists to be detected at Airport, while they are fully pampered at a political Level?].
ABSURD: either we demonstrate against Islam-ism, risking to be blown up, or we shut up about Islam-ism and we let ourselves blown up.
I LOVED THE HERO OF DETROIT’S FLIGHT! A positive constructive evolutive inspirational Icon (and even handsome!).
“I am not talking about “race” but about a highly politicized “faith.””
What race is Islam again?
“I am not talking about “race” but about a highly politicized “faith.””
What race is Islam again?”
You may be talking about a highly politicized faith—-but the subject of race dominates the thinking of the politically correct left. It ultimately only cares that most Muslims possess dark skins. Their anger is supposedly justified because the whites of the West have crapped all over them.
The most annoying thing about evil — being as it is irrationality’s twin — are the puzzles it poses.
It is often difficult to tell the difference between irrationality, stupidity and conscious malice.
Not to say that that has to make our choices more difficult.
The Gordian knot is just too hard to untangle. The best thing to do is simply slice it in two.
Go directly at the problem and attack it at it’s heart.
Anything else has to be regarded with suspicion of complicity.
27. Therefore it is most important to start publically talking about Islamic past and present History (“Crescentmoon-ades”, Islamic Slavery, Jizia/Racket, Charities just for themselves, Underdevelopement in their Islamized Countries despite their Petrodollars, Lies about The West and Westerners in their Media, …).
There’s a good chance that those in power already know the right procedures. But they won’t use them. On purpose. Why? Because terror is the most valued commodity to a dictatorship in the making.
Watch the American leaders. They are the real terrorists.
What if that Muslim’s name Paul Anderson,White and was born and raised in NY or London ?? Trust me , there is lots of them
I end here with “Do it right or die.”
The best solution to a complex problem is most often the simplest (Occam’s razor) – which is profiling in this case. Being PC on terrorism has already killed people – Ft. Hood. The General of the Army didn’t want that “event” to impact the diversity of the military. Heaven forbid.
The Left sees any verbal attack on Islam as racism, bigotry, and an attack on ‘vulnerable dark-skinned people’ and makes those accusations against those who dare to tell the truth about Islam, whilst at the same time they choose to forget that most Christians are also dark-skinned people, but in the Leftist mindset, a dark-skinned Christian is regarded as a ‘honorary white’ hence the crass indifference displayed by the Left towards those dark-skinned Christians butchered by Muslims in Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan etc.
Whilst profiling wouldn’t have stopped that Japanese Red Army example from 1972, it, and obtaining background information, would make that atrocity less likely to be repeated. But the idiots of the Left see profiling as racism and bigotry, and the typical Leftist thinks “If in doubt, let the Muslim bring his bomb onto the plane and strip-search an 80 year old Christian granny instead. We mustn’t upset those brown-skinned Muslim Arabs after all by suspecting they might have a phobia about skyscrapers and hatred of the infidels within, because that makes us look like racists, bigots and Islamophobes”, and that wouldn’t do for the idiotic terrorist-sucking Left. During the troubles in Ireland, intelligence services in Britain rightly suspected anyone with an Irish accent. That was common sense. And plain common sense is being applied when coming to the conclusion that a 25 year old Muslim male is far more likely to be a terrorist than a white Christian copuple who have celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary. The overwhelming majority (probably well over 99.99%) of West-hating terrorists are Muslims. If a terrorist atrocity gets carried out virtually anywhere in the world, it is virtually certain that Muslims will be the perpetrators. Only the politically-correct crackpots could come to the conclusion that elderly white Christian couples are just as likely to be terrorists as Middle Eastern, or indeed ANY Muslims. But political correctness is the opposite of common sense. And we have far too many politically-correct crackpots in charge of our security and ‘intelligence’ agencies for our own good.
I was reading in a Magazine that Istambul has been elected as the EUROPEAN Capital city of Culture. In the notes: “Christians are fill churches again, and they are benefiting of Freedom of Religion”. The picture on the Magazine was
Haja Sophia, The Blue Mosque, which was a church, taken by Islamic/-ist Invadors, and turned into a mosque
+ an hijabed woman carrying a Professional briefcase.
I guess that planes’ Hijackers/Bombers are planned to be part of this new “human” and “Western” Picture,
which has been crafted by a self-elected Political (or else) Lobby/Elite.
Here’s a simple, easy, cheap and infallible way to make sure no mahoundian terrorist (or devout mahoundian, they’re all the same) boards a plane where Western lives might be endangered:
At every single security check at airports, this is what could be done:
1. A copy of Mein Qurampf/The Glory-Ass Quran must be placed on the ground next to a metal detector;
2. The aforementioned book could be open preferably wherever Sura 9 starts;
3. Before going through a metal detector, a would-be passenger would be kindly asked to stomp on it;
4. Depending on the would-be passenger’s action, two options would be given:
a) If the stomping is performed, the passenger can proceed to the next step of the screening;
b) If the stomping is refused, the passenger would be given directions on how to find the closest rent-a-camel location, where he (and possibly his batch of jihadist-breeding mobile tents) would have an opportunity to experience long-distance travel as it would have been in the times of their beloved child-molesting, genocidal pseudo-prophet.
Such a system would guarantee safe air travel until the end of time (or until the oil-rich mahoundian countries run out of their crude and stop financing jihad; an event that would duly transport them all the way back to the 7th Century, a time which their minds have never left. And the only place where their savagery and barbarism belongs.)
Profile away! clean up the no fly lists! get those gizmos that see through our clothing. And monitor what the muslims teach to young men.Arrest their teachers. If there is any anti american teachings tucked into there amongst the prayers nobody understands, close down those schools. Allow only WOMEN emigrate here.
Sorry, but this idea is utter nonsense that would not increase security but do the opposite. Here’s why:
If you would search every muslim (by the way, how would you properly identify them – a lot of countries don’t have a record of their citizens’ religion), airport security would be VERY busy. No time for searching others. Especially those young, radical converts of western ethnicity that aren’t easily identified as muslims. Who now could much easier exercise an attack with airport security’s attention diverted.
So though it is correct to force muslims to confront the fact that most terrorist attacks have been plotted by muslims (not all of them though – let’s not forget Real IRA, ETA and all that scum), you can easily see that this won’t help. Phyllis, I would have expected more from you.
More underwear, more terrorism. Simple solution, ban underwear.
http://bringbackamerica.org/2010/01/02/underwear-story-developing/