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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TideGlider who wrote (76932)	12/30/2009 7:09:26 PM
From: lorne	1 Recommendation Respond to of 224742

Political Correctness Makes Airport Security A Farce posted December 29, 2009 chattanoogan.com In October of 2004, I learned first-hand just how serious our federal government is about defending us from terrorists who threaten airliners; it isn't. I was at Boston's Logan Airport, and had just checked in for my one-way flight to Baltimore where I would board a charter flight bound for Qatar. From there I was to take a military transport into Afghanistan where I would spend the next several months - I was an officer in the U.S. Air Force. My one-way ticket to BWI automatically triggered a call for additional screening at the security checkpoint. Dozens of other people breezed through the magnetometers and retrieved their checked and carry-on bags from the x-ray machines' conveyor belts as I, military orders in hand that denoted my 'top secret' security clearance, dutifully removed my jacket, boots and dogtags and watched as a TSA agent who could barely speak English rifle through the big green bags containing my uniforms and other gear issued to me for the deployment. Minutes earlier, at the ticket counter I had already declared and opened for inspection the locked case that contained the M-9 pistol that would be in my checked baggage. I was in civilian clothes (the Air Force, at the time, did not permit us to travel in fatigues), but it was certainly obvious where I was going and why. That day, the intrepid people of the TSA protected everyone on the Delta Shuttle from a blond-haired, blue-eyed military officer with a Southern accent on his way to the "front lines" of the "Global War on Terror." I don't fault the agent for following orders; I do fault the people at the top of the TSA and federal government who forbid the people on their "front-lines" from acting prudently and focusing on people who may represent an actual threat. I've seen similar scenes around the country in the years since, with soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in combat uniforms getting the third degree from the TSA as they forget to throw away a water bottle or remove a coin from one of a dozen pockets. Does anyone honestly believe that making a show of frisking senior citizens, toddlers or military personnel keep us any safer or deter some jihadi ready to lose his life killing infidels for Allah? Some will accuse me of advocating for racial or ethic "profiling" at airports. Guilty as charged. Of course, not all Muslims are terrorists, but the people who've been trying to blow up airliners with varying degrees of success are all Muslims. Law enforcement agencies all over the world employ highly skilled professionals to create detailed "profiles" for suspects in the most heinous of crimes. Creating a profile saves time, money, and other resources by focusing an investigation on as small a subset of the general population as possible. In the name of political correctness and in order to placate agitator "victim" groups like CAIR, the TSA, airline employees and security agencies at airports around the world routinely ignore those who fit the profile for potential airline terrorists: Middle Eastern or North African Muslim men between the ages of 18 and 40. By Sept. 12, 2001, weren't we all aware that if someone of that description purchases a one-way ticket with cash and has no checked or carry-on luggage for a U.S.-bound intercontinental flight on an important Christian holiday, a little additional screening might be in order? Not in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who attempted to bring down Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit by detonating explosives he had hidden in his underwear. Not only did he walk through security with a fairly common and detectable plastic explosive, but there are now reports that he may have boarded without a valid passport. If Schipol is anything like an American airport, no doubt the Dutch security screeners were too busy looking for pot in the backpacks of young American tourists or going through the purses of little old Lutheran ladies to take a second look at a man who fit the profile of a likely suicide bomber . Even after the suspect's father, a prominent Nigerian banker, rightly reported his son to U.S. State Department officials as a potential terrorist, Abdulmutallab's name apparently didn't get on the same "no-fly" list that once famously included the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens or the radical Irish-Catholic threat to airline security, Senator Ted Kennedy. Do the TSA, FAA, and American airline companies not have access to the kind of technology and techniques used by the Israelis for flights in and out of their country? Of course they do; but there have been conscious decisions by political appointees in this Administration and the previous one not to employ security screening measures that have proven to be successful. The response of TSA and FAA to this latest attack, thwarted not by their system, but by flight attendants and ordinary passengers who put out the fire and subdued the man (hopefully they don't get sued) will be to issue new guidelines tweaking a few security procedures and a call for more full body x-ray scanners. In short, they will continue to treat all air travelers like suspected terrorists, while continuing to ignore those who may actually pose a threat. Sam Deaton North Chattanooga