Today, one of the myriad manifestations of al Qaeda claimed the klutz of a bomber who supposedly tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day. To the extent to which this can be seen as a legitimate expression of actual al Qaeda policy (always debatable with that loose bag of hyperviolent wingnuts), we can say that this marks the moment that the terrorist network lost its self-respect entirely.
If these people keep embracing incompetence and claiming it as their own in this manner, soon we’ll have to rename it the War on Stupidity, because they will have lost the capacity to inspire Terror in anyone.
Seems like they’d wait until one of these guys actually blows up something before they claim him. If I were trying to run a terrorist organization, that’s what I’d do.
They don’t have to blow things up to succeed. The eventual multi-billion dollar increase in government spending on full body scanners at the airport is a victory for them.
Only if they own stock…
Every dime spent on useless preventative measures weakens America.
As a very frequent flier, it’s not difficult to see all the holes in the system.
It’s like submarines. They’re either there or they aren’t, but they COULD be there, and so you tie up resources looking for them. It’s a major reason the British navy was so cautious in the Falklands campaign.
Further comment:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/killersubs/threat.html
BTW, hometown hero Jim DeMint is doing his best to screw up TSA:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/28/AR2009122802131.html
Yup, Doug. My husband calls it security theater. It’s for show, but not very effective, as seen by recent events!
Why don’t we adopt the Israeli approach-it’s been very effective, and everyone keeps his shoes on! Ask someone about last night’s game 9there wasn’t one); check for other wonky behaviors, that can be quantified, to avoid profiling, etc. Takes training and hiring people (jobs!) instead of buying machine after machine….
Let’s not forget our own Sen. Demint who, in the words of one commentator, “is more afraid of unions than of terrorists.” Actually, in the long run, we’ll have to profile – have trained observers who can spot the behavioral cues and other indicators that someone about to board a flight might be a terrorist.
Of course, every time they fail they look more and more inept.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTTgpsAs4_c
The BBC says Al Queda does not exist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg
Osama Bin Laden is dead.
Now let’s examine a fact or two while we’re going after DeMint for being an “obstructionist” shall we?
The following 5 items have been checked and “paraphrased” from another commenter on another post.
1. There has not been a TSA chief for over a year. The new one will be the 5th one in 8 years.
2. Southers was not nominated until 9/11/09. Obama had been in office for over 8 months. Wonder
why it suddenly become a “Republican” problem after so long?
3. Southers nomination then proceeded to the Commerce Committee where he was approved on
10/27/09.
4. Southers nomination was then sent to the Homeland Security Committee and they did not act until
11/19/09.
5. Reid had not scheduled a confirmation vote before the Christmas break.
So, how the hell can DeMint be blamed for “holding up” confirmation of the nominee? How can he be “screwing up” the TSA? If the position was so damn critical, Obama would have acted on it months ago. And, because of Obama’s delay to respond after the attempt has been met with a round of criticism and compared to Bush’s Katrina response, naturally, every conceivable excuse will be found to give him cover.
Since blaming Republicans or Bush is the kneejerk reaction from the administration, guess what? DeMint is the villain and responsible for the bomber getting on the flight.
If you want to point fingers, make sure they are pointed in the right direction and at the right person.
Bart, the only fingers I’m pointing are at a man whose ego seems to swell every time he gets favorable mention in the press. You can rightly criticize the Obama Administration for laggardliness in submitting the nomination, but Demint’s obstructionism is part of a strategy – aimed at what, I don’t know.
“So, how the hell can DeMint be blamed for “holding up” confirmation of the nominee?”
Perhaps because he’s taking credit for doing so.
Now, on a more realistic vein — officials are simply afraid of profiling, which is an end result of (A) Misunderstanding discrimination law (B) Lawyers eager to exploit that ignorance (C) Hiring low-bidders and private agencies to do the government’s work (D) An inability to learn from and implement the success of other governments (E) and (gawd, I hate to say this) political correctness trumping reality.
The result — low-paid, poorly trained, otherwise-unhireable people who look for bombs, not bombers.
TSA, which was quickly and rashly organized, is better than nothing, but it could be better. It needs an overhaul.
Lazy/scared lawyering is a huge deal. Many, if not most, government lawyers are so afraid of being wrong, they essentially are no more than issue-spotters. Just say no. The government lawyer version of “win with anyone; Lose with Cravath.” If you take the most conservative position, it won’t blow up in your face.
I just read, in another context, that some celebrities lawyers sent out a cease-and-desist letter to a blog — actually an apologize & remove letter. It contained the ominous sentence “This letter is a confidential legal communication and not for publication.” Now, if you’re a blogger w/o easy access to a sensible lawyer, doesn’t that sound serious! Fortunately, this blogger knew better, and posted the letter—and did not remove the offending post (involving claims of Photoshop excesses).
So how come we don’t balance the competing interests and realize that Mossad-style security has worked, and no one has to carry their toiletries in a baggie or their shoes in a bin? Let’s demand better lawyering for our tax dollars! Make it equally unpleasant to make a wimp-out call as to make a decent legal assessment that may be wrong….
This is the kind of thing that gets us anti-war types blood to boiling. OF COURSE AL-QEADA IS NOT THAT BIG OF A THREAT. That’s what we’ve been saying all along. We spend 3/4 of a trillion dollars on military crap, get 6,000 Americans killed along with hundreds of thousands of folks in Iraq and Afghanistan and now we find out that Al-Qeada is not really a threat after all. Geez, our priorities in the country are so messed up it’s simply mind-boggling. No wonder we have one of the shortest life expectancies of any industrial nation on earth. We send people overseas to get killed while we ignore the things that kill people at home. Unbelievable.
The vast majority of the “type” likely to commit a terrorist act is a young Muslim man with few family connections and a high degree of dsaffection and anomie. Profiling doesn’t create this stereotype, it just looks out for it. But government workers are nervous, for legal reasons, to focus on any one type, so instead they focus on everyone.