Defending The Skies Against Congress And The Elderly 1230
theodp writes "After watching a burly airport screener search her lymphoma-stricken father, forcing the frail and faltering 78-year-old to hand over his oxygen meter, stand at attention with arms spread for a wand search, take off the Velcro strap shoes that he'd struggled to put on, and strain to keep his balance as his belt was tugged repeatedly, a Newsweek columnist wonders: have we lost our common sense when it comes to passenger screening?" An anonymous reader writes "CNN reported that Kennedy wasn't alone in being listed in the airport watch list as reported in a Slashdot article. Rep. John Lewis, D - Georgia, a nine-term congressman, has been stopped many times because his name appeared on an airline watch list as told to Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on border security. He contacted the Department of Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security and executives at various airlines in an effort to get his name off the list, but failed. Instead, he received a letter from the TSA indicating he has cleared an identity check with the agency even though he might still be subject to extra security checks."
hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
The other side? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pilots, too... (Score:5, Interesting)
No Common Sense - All signs point to yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it any wonder why? (Score:5, Interesting)
See, I'm disabled. I'm stuck in a wheelchair. At the moment, I can still stand by myself, for short periods, I can even put my shoes on (Velcro is my bestest friend), I cannot, however, spend multiple hours waiting in line to be screened - MS has left my bladder very functional, but taken away my ability to sense "fullness" (and no, the drug that's advertised will not help. Tried that. Nada).
So, flying is out. Greyhound is even worse - those toilets are *not* very handicapped accessible. Amtrack? They keep cutting off routes because Congress won't give them adequate funding for anything but the East coast corridor. Driving? Ha! Got no vehicle that can carry my power chair, and I for sure can't drive myself any more.
So I'm stuck here in Seattle, likely until I die. Thank you, TSA, and your over-zealous "screeners" who really can't stop a determined terrorist (or even a half-determined amateur who wants to demonstrate gow ludicrous the "Homeland Security" really is).
Bah. A pox on all their houses.
Not in other countries (Score:1, Interesting)
Want to hear something else that's dumb? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, whereas in the past, a family of British tourists to the US would have a couple of adult passports and one or two for the older kids, with the younger kids and the new baby travelling on one of their parent's passports, they now have to all have their own individual passports and all be photographed and fingerprinted on entry.
Now can someone please tell me how requiring babies to have their own passports adds to the security of the US? All this is doing (together with the treating visitors to the US like criminals before they've even set foot on US soil) is giving people every incentive to spend their holidays anywhere but the US. Watch whilst the US tourist industry takes a dive because of this bureaucratic stupidity.
I was targeted on my last flight... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm guessing I was a random target for extra security, but who knows?
As for seraching the elderly and children, smugglers have used such people before, and the successful terrorist groups look for loopholes in security before striking. For example, if knives and metal toy guns get caught too often in "dry runs", then they use box cutters instead once they know that they can get them past security.
Have we lost our common sense when it comes to... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure other threads will bring this up, but Bruce Schneier has a great term for this: he calls it "security theater".
Fortunately terrorism isn't a threat in the US. The chances of dying of terrorism here are less than the chances of being killed by lightening or many other things. We shouldn't worry about it.
Ok, here's a link about responsibility and human rights [a-human-right.com].
Re:hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would hope that the Democrats start looking into this and do more than their standard "launch an investigation", because I would suspect this problem is a little more intractable because of the fairly strong partisanship in the US right now.
Re:Have we lost true media inquisitiveness? (Score:3, Interesting)
Said columnist is not really a columnist. The "My Turn" column in Newsweek is written each week by someone from the general public. It's a high-profile soapbox for people who aren't reporters.
Just the facts (Score:4, Interesting)
hell, I had more trouble explaining my ZIPPO lighter than I did all the other electronic stuff I carry.
That's easy. (Score:4, Interesting)
#2. Rotate the first 2 seats in the plane to face the rest of the passengers.
#3. An air marshal with a pistol or uzi and rubber bullets (no hull penetration) sits here, facing the passengers.
#4. The air marshal has an intercom to the pilots.
#5. Improve training at the baggage inspectors. They are the first line of defense.
That way, a terrorist has to get past the first inspectors, get past the air marshal who will have alerted the pilot who will be calling in for emergency landing instructions and military support and then get past the door to get to the cockpit.
Defense in depth.
Weak old guys and fat senators don't pose any problems to that system.
So-called "expert systems" (Score:5, Interesting)
Now you can fault the airlines or the government for having accessed all our private information just to train and calibrate the systems, but there's a more fundamental problem: they didn't usefully train or calibrate those systems at all. They just wasted time and money. And they give at least some people a false sense of security when all it really is, is mumbo-jumbo.
Re:MOD PARENT UP! (Score:2, Interesting)
You have to wonder (Score:2, Interesting)
IMHO, I think it would make more sense to put two classes of people on the list. Those classes being anyone who was not born in the United States, and anyone who has a criminal record which includes a violent crime or a felony. We're primarily watching for terrorists and violent people. To me, it makes more sense to watch the types of people most likely to be a terrorist or a violent person. When was the last time you met a 78 year old man who wanted to hijack a plane and crash it into something?
Also, I think it would be a show of good faith for Homeland Security to send a letter notifying people that they are on the watch list and why, thus offering them a chance to correct the issue ahead of time if they shouldn't be on it. Many would say that would just be alerting the enemy, but if they are really doing something wrong, and we know who they are, it won't matter if they know we know about them.
Re:I don't understand the focus on airline securit (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to disagree. 9/11, while horrific and twisted, was still brilliant.
Nobody's ever going to make us safer by overestimating the intelligence of terrorists.
Yet everything they do is, in your words, "by definition, stupid"? Methinks you're underestimating them...?
Besides, if you read the 9/11 Commission report, you saw just how close we came to losing Flight 93.
If flight 93 crashing with the loss of all on board doesn't count as "lost", I don't know what does...
And those precious locks on the cockpit doors that so many short-sighted people fought for will do an excellent job of keeping the passengers and crew out of the hijackers' way.
If the passengers and crew can't get in, neither can the terrorists (at least, not without explosives or taking apart the door, but that'd make it accessible by the passengers anyways).
Funny that you accuse others of being short-sighted...
Not only the US (Score:1, Interesting)
A little old lady in front of me, stereotypical really, had a pogo stick in a box all wrapped up ready for her grandson. Security refused to let her take it on the train because it could be a weapon.
I pondered this as I wandered off on my two 1.2 metre, very usable bludgeoning weapon crutches....
Respecting foreign dignitories (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fighting the last war. (Score:5, Interesting)
After all this "security" stuff was enacted their were polls that asked how "secure" people felt. One company did the poll and it said 70 some % of people felt safer now. Then they added another question "have you flown on an airplane since 9/11?" After factoring in that answer it was 7% of people who have flown since 9/11 felt safer, where as the vast majority of people who hadn't flown felt safer. It was over 90 some %.
So now we have the most annoying security in the world at our airports that makes people who don't fly feel safe!
Arn't we glad we are making our lives a pain in the ass!!!
Re:hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
The last real war-fighting Democrats we had were FDR and Harry Truman. It's true that Johnson is the one who really ramped up US involvement in Viet Nam, however, he A) Didn't really want to do it, and B) Did it rather poorly. If the military had been given the mission in Viet Nam that they were given in Iraq (invade the country, shatter its army, and invest the capital, followed by the rest of the country), that mission would have been achieved. Since they were given an impossible mission, however, it had a predictable result.
John Kerry would no real war-fighting president. He's the kind of Democrat bin Laden wants in the oval office. You can bet he sure doesn't want Bush re-elected, and that alone is adequate reason to vote for Bush.
Yes, I know Kerry fought in Viet Nam and was decorated there, and Bush was in only in the Air Guard and never had an overseas tour. However, neither of those makes a person a war-fighting president or not. Indeed, I don't much care what Kerry, Bush, or anyone else did during the Viet Nam era, and neither should the rest of the voters. We should care what they are doing and seem capable of doing right now, and that's why I support Bush.
I think it's a shame that neither Colin Powell nor Condoleeza Rice are running for president; I believe them both to be far more qualified than either Kerry or Bush.
And if anyone on the Bush campaign is reading this, you need to jettison Cheney and put Rice on the ticket as VP. Really. Not only would she be a marvelously better VP than Cheney, she would easily beat any other contender to become Bush's successor in four years,
Happened to me too (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Security? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I am prior TSA (Score:3, Interesting)
Wish TSA training would include that... it'd make a huge difference.
Americans dont care anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
While in other countries I noticed regardless of position the person doing it knew checking the papers was something that was of utmost importance and it was their job.
The passport checker would take my papers look them over for about 3-7 minutes and then allow me to move forward, or in some instances ask a gentleman to the side for some sort of re-verification with someone else. People gathering luggage carts did it speedily and was smart enough to see that when someone needed one take it out if their train and give it to the weary traveler.
Upon arrival at LAX I noticed people asked to see various forms of ID while traveling through the terminals about 4 times before luggage claim, with each time no one even glancing at the paper they are asking for, but simply taking it and handing it back. As if passing time till next pay day. Cart gatherers would take carts and if someone needed one direct them to where they should get them, with a life sucks type attitude. No one around to provide information to foreigners on where to get a taxi or even where to proceed next.
Ever since the boomer generation and subsequent generations it seems no one cares one way or another about much of anything, Im beginning to believe my grandparents stories on how they had a work ethic over us. What we need is people taking pride back in whatever it is they do and I would say almost all the things that frustrate us daily would disappear.
Let's just be done with it... (Score:1, Interesting)
chechens == caucasian heartland (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, let's bring on the racial profiling !
Re:Sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Let's just be done with it... (Score:1, Interesting)
WAKE UP!!!. Your country is cutting its own throat on the gloabal scene. Slashdot is just going someway towards representing the global view.
If I hated the US I wouldn't be writing this. Instead I would be staying silent and rejoicing as the US trips itself over. As citizen of a genuine friend and (ANZUS) ally of the US I'm saying "Your government is off the rails and destroying your country. From the inside you might not be able to see that, but I want to help."
Think before automatically labelling messagess which make you uncomfortable as hate. Genuine friends don't always tell you what you want to hear.
Re:Security? (Score:4, Interesting)
How about if they are doing this to Edward Kennedy et al on purpose. So far the US has asked us for their trust and if Mr. Kennedy is a suspected terrorist and under review will not be given a clean slate in terms of flying on an airplane then should he be holding office?
Why is it that they are not arresting any of the people that they flag as terrorists (or likely to be)?
They are swinging a big stick and pointing it all around but not 'doing' anything rather than threatening to use it again.
If they want all of this trust, patients and understanding why don't they ever accomplish anything other than moving the 'terrorist alert' level?
With all this intelligence and lists they have compliled why have they not made any arrests? Its been 3 years (almost) now but the same thing over and over again, "if you dont do what we say you will die at the hands of some religious freak".
I don't know about you but if I had a list of bad people that were gonna do bad things I would do a little more than wait for them to get on a plane to just ask them questions and waste their time, then of course let them go on thier marry way.
Common Bush give us some reason to buy your bullshit it can't be that hard you have a lot of intelligent people working for you just give em more tax payer money, because in my opinion you are the worst terrorist of them all
my $0.02 take it or leave it
Re:Security? (Score:3, Interesting)
Bin Laden wrote a letter stating his demands [guardian.co.uk]. Here is a excerpt. Maybe you can pick out a few of the demands that he makes that would require changing the way Americans live today. Just to give you a head start, I'll sum it up, although this isn't complete: Convert everyone in America to Islam, drop the Constitution and separation of church and state, impose Sharia (Islamic) law, stop all gambling, drug use, alcohol, pornography, and prostitution, adultery, fornication, homosexuality under pain of appropriate Islamic penalty (usually death), stop preventing genocide against the Jews, stop charging interest on bank loans, etc. No changes there, right?
Think about your solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, in your solution, would you allow flight attendants to communicate with the flight crew, e.g. to tell them there is a fire in the cabin, or someone is having a heart attack and they need to divert? Because, if so, what flight crew will ignore terrorist demands if they start killing all 400 passengers one by one? Maybe a robot flight crew, that's the only one I can imagine. But then you still have the problem of not being able to inform the robot that the situation requires a change in the flight plan (fire, heart attack, etc). Or, if you allow that to happen, even via the ground, you still have the problem of the terrorists killing off the passengers while taunting the guys on the ground. Maybe you think officials on the ground can stand up to that pressure. I don't.
And, would you allow axes or other heavy tools in the cockpit to use in case of a crash landing? If so, do you really think your reinforced and doorless cockpit wall is going to stand up to them without weighing enough to cut the payload in half?
The Amusing Thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about the stupid programming!
All a terrorist has to do is add something to his name and he drops off the list!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Your tax dollars at work!
If this doesn't prove that the whole thing is purely a) for show and b) to increase the government's ability to harass the citizenry for no reason at all except to prove they can, I don't know what does.
And, yes, some morons say some of the 9/11 terrorists used their own names when they traveled. What does this tell you? They weren't terrorists, that's what. Either that or the names they used weren't actually theirs and the FBI/CIA is too stupid to determine their real names.
Re:Security? (Score:3, Interesting)
I recoment the book On War, by Karl von Clausewitz. Even tho it is from 1832, it explains in great details why the aliance won WWII, and why USA lost on Vietnam and North Korea. And why USA is currently loosing the war against terrorism. And I mean "terrorism", not necessarily the Al Quaeda, or Saddan.
Quotes from the book (free translation):
"Always keep your forces concentrated, and in the best possible disposition."
"The greater possible number of soldier should be put in action at the decisive point" (Emphasis by me).
And, the one the terrorist always follow:
"If you can't get absolute superiority, you should get a relative superiority at the decisive point, by masterfuly using all the forces you have."
Also, since I'm quoting, lemme give you one from Mao Tsé-Tung:
"When the enemy advances, we withdraw. When he camps, we taunt. When he gets tired, we attack. When he withdraws, we pursue them."
Okey, I'm done with this subject. Thank you all for your patience.
Re:Security? (Score:5, Interesting)
stupid/ignorant/evil/jerk-offs/small-minded/"ca
Just because they are citizens does not mean that they should be allowed to make policy. Viz, just because they happen to be human doesn't mean their opinion is useful, important, or valuable.
Re:Security? (Score:3, Interesting)
"
At least your sense of humor is not impared.
"... when the shooting was done is that we made sure the combat took place on enemy soil."
As I recall, the EU (in Europe, where much of the fighting took place) has a larger economy than the US. Remember Japan and Korea, where a great deal of damage was done; our trade balance with them is very sad. China? We owe China a great deal of money.
In, say, 1000 AD, China and the Islamic world were more advanced than Europe. Why did Europe develop science, mathematics, technology, etc.? Why was Gauss German and not from China or Egypt? In part, it is bacause Europe had lots of strife and other parts of the world had stable governments. (OK, this is rather simplistic but in broad outline it is correct.) There were reasons to allow people ("hackers"?) rock the boat. Newton, Leibnitz, Euler, the Bernoullis, etc. helped advance knowledge which allowed (some) nations to survive.
The United States had a temporary advantage after WW2. We have lost that in all areas except the armed forces, which are a drain on the economy. If the rest of the world said, "Pay us what you owe us.", we would be ruined. If oil was priced in Euros rather than dollars, we would be screwed (over time).
There was a plan in 2000 to strongly increase funding to the National Science Foundation (NSF). Bush has not followed through on this plan which was considered by various national science and engineering societies and supported as a good tool of economic and technological development. Bush has cost the US decades of international ill-will. Remember the war in Iraq is over; Bush announced on that aircraft carrier. The bottom line is that Bush is a foolish and inadequate President. If he is reelected, we (in the US, UK, Isreal, Egypt, Korea, etc.) are in trouble.
Re:That's easy. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a slow process, and the airline is paying for the plane while not making any money off it the whole time. That sort of thing makes them unhappy.
Also, it should also be noted that we don't have nearly enough Air Marshalls to police every flight into and/or inside the US. There are thousands of flights every day in US airpace. It would take effectively a small army to put 1 or 2 Air Marshalls on every flight. The TSA, even with their insane budget, couldn't afford it.
Conspiracy theory (Score:4, Interesting)
If you flew back in the sixties (yes, I am old enough to be authoritative about this) you were fed decent meals and lavished with extreme courtesy by very well turned out flight attendants. Just generally you were dealing with a high end, high cost transport method and that's how you were treated. It was fun and it was interesting and it wasn't all that expensive, though I can't say it felt cheap. Throw in a limo at both ends and we're talking something to truly look forward to.
Sadly, today we're dealing with a low end, cut-rate, cattle-call transport method and that's how you're treated. Aside from some extremely misguided women's liberation / political correctness bonehead moves attempting to reject and/or hide femininity, most of this is IMHO due to government interference with the airlines. Deregulation on the one hand, and over regulation on the other.
So some of the makings of a decent conspiracy theory seem to be there.
However, after quite a bit of consideration, I've decided that it is probably stupidity on the part of the government, rather than any organized attempt to destroy the industry. Mainly, this is because I can't figure out why they would be trying to do so - no matter how clear it is that they are doing so.
But I'm not closed minded about it. Not everyone in government is an idiot, clearly, so maybe there is a conspiracy. Anyone have any wild ideas to flesh this out? The government might want to destroy the airline industry because... ???
As an aside, mainly because of what a lousy experience flying is these days, I don't take planes any longer; I drive. I've renewed an interest in high performance cars and added fun gadgets (like street-level mapping GPS, XM Radio, scanners, ham radio, radar and laser detectors, some pretty extreme car audio) and turned my steadily more-and-more annoying business travel back into a perk. Now all I have to do is avoid speeding tickets, which so far I've managed to do. :)
Re:Security? (Score:5, Interesting)
Whatever the administration[1] does is wrong. If there is another attack, whatever they were doing wasn't enough. If there isn't another attack, whatever they were doing was too harsh.
[1] administration = whoever is in power, dem/reb/lib/tory/labour/socialist/whoever...
Re:Security? (Score:5, Interesting)
All over the world, people know that if you give the U.S. a big enough black eye, we'll turn tail.
The Iraqis know it too. How many GIs would they have to send home in a day to end this thing? Fifty? A hundred? Think tet. All they need is one big PR victory and the war's over and it won't be for the best.
These problems are solved with cash. Big fat fucking sacks of it. CIA finds the most radical mullahs and buys them off. Trust me, they're for sale. Next stop, make life livable in those countries, shit make it comfortable. Nobody with 500 channels straps a bomb on. People with air conditioned malls don't want to breed a generation of martyrs, they want to breed a generation of consumers. We win this thing by making nice, not by making more terrorists.
Re:Oxygen you say? (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't make sense considering many airlines have oxygen as part of their first aid kits.
Here's a crazy idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now imagine if an airline decided they wanted to do this. They'd need their own airport, and they'd probably be violating a dozen federal laws.
Re:Have we lost our common sense when it comes to. (Score:3, Interesting)
To further emphasize this point. 3K people died on 9/11. 3K people die from smoking EVERY WEEK.
Just wait for the next terrorist attack (Score:3, Interesting)
It's probably going to come out in a few years that al-Queda is down to a dozen guys with cell phones, making calls once in a while to rattle the US.
Incidentally, if you haven't read bin Laden's writings, do so. His stated plan was to use terrorism to make western civilization more oppressive and thus less attractive. Bush is playing right along.
Re:Americans dont care anymore (Score:1, Interesting)
As a frequent international flyer I have seen firsthand many of the changes in airline security since 2001. There have been many frustrations. But one dimension sticks out. Prior to the terrorist attacks I always locked my bags and I never had a theft or loss in a decade of flights worldwide. In the last ~2.5 years, since we have been precluded from locking our luggage, I've had several packed items (CDs, PDA, etc) go missing. All inside the US.
As per the TSA suggestions I always thread a small cable-tie in lieu of a lock: the TSA guys can easily snip it if they need in. And if TSA searches a bag they are supposed to cable-tie the lock-point/zipper/whatever as well.
Since 2001 I have found about a dozen "searched by TSA" notecards in my luggage. Only once was a cable-tie replaced on a bag. On the other hand, the zippers on two bags were damaged/destroyed as someone bulled through the thin cable-tie plastic (yo, jackass, use scissors next time).
In contrast, coming home from Europe or Asia on non-US airlines I have never had any luggage problems (barring the odd late bag). In Japan, e.g., you may occasionally be politly asked to open a lock and you get to watch as they inspect things. Similar for London. Similar for even privacy-challenged, aggro-policed France. As for China, the only thing they seem to fret over are ersatz DVDs.
Now, I have encountered slacker-clockpuncher airline security personell in various countries, but lately the US seems to have a higher density of these people. Is it indeed pride? Pay? Respect?
It is terrible because air security people such as TSA have a genuinly important job. They deserve respect, but at the same time there is no place in such an important agency for slackers, pilferers or indeed anyone not enthusiastic about their job.
And for God's sake, a occasional smile never hurt anyone (and it costs nothing).
Re:Replies (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Your vehicle? WTF? A 10-second search at Google shows that Shuttle express has lift-equipped vans. This is less than $30.00 one way; given that you'll be paying $8.00/day for parking your own car, I don't think this would be an extravagant expense.
MS, I'm sure, is no fun. But that doesn't give you an excuse to litter Slashdot with your self-defeatist attitude. The next time, you can post how you managed to make it there, despite your disabilities.
Re:Security? (Score:5, Interesting)
Fine... then it follows that a representative government is nothing more than a system where less than 1% of the people take away the rights of the other 99+%
I think a democracy has to win; it indeed sucks as per M. Jefferson's observation, but it is far better in principle than a representative system.
Our current system not only fits the 1% definition, but I am also under the very strong impression that it is doing considerably worse than a 50% majority of citizens would.
I have always found it telling that the US judicial system is set up so that a vote of your citizen peers is the trusted heart and soul of votes that affect you in major ways, unless you choose otherwise; but that politicians have set up a system where our peers have pretty much zero input, no matter how we choose. Citizens are OK to choose if you live or die; but apparently they're far too stupid to decide if you should be allowed to screw someone doggie style, or give/receive oral sex. We "need" politicians to do that for us. Thank goodness for politicians, eh? Seriously - it's OK for a jury to decide if you are guilty of murder, but not to rule on if piercing the labia is OK. The lesson is clear: In the current system, your life is less important than rulemaking, and the reason for that is because the politicians have voted themselves permanent pensions and other fabulous perks from parking places to travel junkets, and you are definitely not going to get to vote on those issues.
Re:limbless can't fly (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:well, yes. (Score:2, Interesting)
Douglas Adams was on to something when he suggested the idea of Atheist Airlines:
"At Atheist Air, prior to boarding, passengers would be required to spout blasphemous remarks at a display of artifacts from all the major religions. This effectively weeds out anyone who has a secret plan to meet the Creator in the next few hours. Blasphemers would be allowed to carry-on pickaxes, blowtorches, chainsaws, nun chucks, whatever, under the theory that atheists generally try to avoid hurting other people in any situation where there isn't a clear escape route."
Ok, so my rant above is a bit harsh, but I've been feeling oppressed by the right lately.. :p
Re:limbless can't fly (Score:4, Interesting)
But then when you start digging a bit, you'll find these stories with a lot of airlines.
Regarding the anti-french sentiment here, it definitely is present, as well as a strong anti-US sentiment, an anti-arab sentiment, and anti-pretty much every thing sentiments which is pretty much what you'd expect when a community grows since the global intelligence quickly drops proportionally to the number of members (or is it to the square of the number of members?). And with the recent anti-french propaganda in the US, that was bound to leave some trace. I'm French and I don't really mind it. It just makes me sad that playing with people's opinions is that easy.
Re:limbless can't fly (Score:1, Interesting)
first class mail monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
"Destroying terrorism" like destroying open source (Score:3, Interesting)
News for you: "destroying terrorists" has generally not worked well, because you can only oppress people to a certain point before you just get someone else willing to die. See Israel, see Ireland. The United States wiping out terrorism makes as much sense as Microsoft wiping out open source. It just doesn't *work*. There's no single organization. What say you manage to kill off every person currently in al Quada? Then you have a lot of angry people. It's been demonstrated that it only takes four guys who know each other willing to die with knives to take over an airplane. And, heck, that's a pretty elaborate plot. There are much easier routes -- make a fertilizer bomb, or release nasty chemicals next to building air intakes. As long as you have a lot of people who perceive that the United States is oppressing people and culture, there will be terrorism.
The US is good at marketing. Why can't we work in projecting a "the US is a bunch of good guys, not something you want to fight" image?
I bet 50% of the people who vote for Bush vote because Kerry would have us be nice to the terrorists so they don't hate us so much.
I don't think so, though I wish he would (well, "present a more appealing image to the Middle East", rather than "be nice to the terrorists", but pretty much, yes).
I bet 50% of the people who vote for Bush because the veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam say that he can't be trusted to lead the country.
[shrug] Some do, though the people in his boat disagree. Frankly, they knew Kerry years ago and knew him in the capacity of a combat boat commander. I'm dubious as to how well that reflects on Kerry's ability to be a government administrator (or acrobat, or sign painter, for that matter). I *know* that I've just lived through four years of the Bush administration, and I *know* that Bush doesn't do a very good job. There are a lot of times when what I wanted the US to be doing very much different from what Bush had the US doing.
I bet 50% of the people who vote for Bush are voting because Kerry would turn over our national sovereignty to organizations like the UN, which allowed Saddam Hussein to enrich himself with the thoroughly corrupt oil-for-food program.
(a) No president has ever had interest in "turning over our national sovereignty". That's absurd. If you mean "might have listened to the UN when they were condemning us for invading Iraq", I have to point out that that's a long way from "turning over national sovereignty", unless there are no other nations left in the world.
(b) The food-for-oil program was corrupt, yes. It was a mechanism of buying off the leaders of the country. We do the exact same thing (and have, for many, many years), with the same degree of corruption, by use of "foreign aid" for years. It keeps foreign administrations nicely in check, and it's cheaper than fighting wars.
Re:The Real Problem with Airport Security (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone who talks like this should be avoiding racist stereotypes himself. For example, you should not assume that all al-Quaeda members are Middle-easterners. They're not, no more than all Muslims are. Remember John Walker, the "American Taliban"? Right now al-Quaeda is busy recruiting all sorts of guys like that. Meanwhile, 99.999% of all olive skinned, dark haired, brown eyed men aren't terrorists at all. No, racial profiling is not the answer. Not because the target race can disguise itself, but because the target race doesn't necessarily represent the real target!
And just because Hitler didn't know what "Aryan" meant doesn't mean you ought to be using that word the same way he did. Real Aryans are people like Persians or Romani. Ironically, that last, otherwise known as Gypsies, was among the people Hitler targeted in his death camps. The one thing Aryans generally are not is blond haired and blue eyed.
Re:limbless can't fly (Score:1, Interesting)
you got these two backwards... but dont worry, you ignorant americans always do
Re:Security? (Score:3, Interesting)
While this seems like a wonderful success story, Switzerland is not an isolated nation-state, it relies on the wealth of the entire world, most of which has little or no 'representation'.
Unfortunately, it seems to me, the tendency of human society is one where 99% of the populace, given a choice, would rather be uninformed, and release the decision making to a select few (and as a result grant these few extensive power and wealth). Historically, this is the steady state, until those few become irresponsible and oppress, necessitating an informed electorate to unseat the current leadership and replace it with one more responsible.
fwiw, Switzerland is still my ideal of a nation, which is probably fueled by that fact that I am a Swiss-American, and am inherently biased =)
Re:Security? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's something in there for everybody!
Re:Security? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well that's as broad as it is long, isn't it? You could as easily say that whatever the administration does is right, because if there is another attack, then they need to do even more of whatever they were doing, however unpleasant, whereas if there isn't another attack, then whatever they were doing was obviously justified.
In my opinion, this kind of rationalization does not relieve an administration of the duty to pay attention to its citizens.
Re:Security? (Score:2, Interesting)
The real concern of the US government in the Middle East, rightly or wrongly, has been Iran (at least, since they threw our brutal dictator puppet out). The Saudi Arabian government did not *want* our help with Saddam Hussein (pick a reason, maybe they were afraid for their sovereignty if they had to accept foreign aid, or maybe they really thought they could handle it) but we forced it on them.
The main presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia is because of the Patriot missile batteries. There's more to the story, but the short of it is that the US provides the batteries and the troops to operate them -- and additional troops to provide security. The Saudi Arabian government tolerates this (sort of) because it is the arrangement which gives them the missile batteries they believe they need.
What I'm saying is that once you scratch the surface it gets *a lot* more complicated than simply pulling out troops. Not that these complexities *shouldn't* be tackled.
thoromyr
Re:Security? (Score:3, Interesting)
This assumes that the trends will continue unabated for a very looong time (100 years or more despite your alarmist dates pulled off the ceiling by a known Zionist, Thomas Libscomb). Additionaly the anti-semitism and radicalism is equally likely a response to the continuing, seemlesly endless stream of beligernt and arrogant anti-arab actions by both Israel and the US. Untill that stops, noone can tell if this is a part of a violent grand world takover scheme or merely a response to being taunted and degraded. Additionally you forgot to mention that the said Muslim populations are typically North African in origin and desperately poor and mostly unemployed. I bet their extemism has much more to do with that then Millitant Islam (which merely provides a framework on which to hang your social disappointments and setbacks).