Posted on 09/29/2001 3:32:54 AM PDT by kattracks
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:00:59 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
September 29, 2001 -- Just a small percentage of checked luggage on U.S. airlines is screened for explosives, industry insiders told The Post.
Even more shocking - only 132 airports out of more than 400 nationwide have explosive-detection machines.
And those machines are underused.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
This is the problem I have with some of these proposals for taxpayer bailouts of the airlines.
The airlines were responsible for security. They failed.
The airlines KNEW stronger security measures were needed - but they didn't implement them because they didn't want to spend the money.
Now the airlines should have taken their responsibility seriously, and they should have had insurance to cover any damages or losses, but apparently they didn't - is that MY problem, as a taxpayer?
I'm getting really tired of people behaving irresponsibly, and then expecting to be bailed out by the taxpayer. What's really horrible is that thousands of people died, in part because the airlines didn't do what they should have done.
But, when I checked in, I wasn't asked for ID (asked twice on my return trip). At the time I was very much aware of it, but odd how meaningless and seemingly unimportant this was at the time. Was also in Manhattan on 8Sep, ret'd home on 9Sep.
Safely home on 11Sep, although in shock, I had of feeling of relief that everything was behind me, but felt I'd never again want to fly. Time will tell, but I tend to think I will be in the air again, just when is the question.
These dogs are heroes, and love their jobs. Some years ago, I saw a beagle drug-sniffer who found "something", and the little fellow seemed happier than if given a piece of prime beef; after a pat on the head, he went on to the next pieces of luggage.
EVERY PART OF THEIR BUSINESS HAS COST AND RISK. They bought cheap security and we have 6000+ dead people as a result. Why should the airlines not bear the full wieght of the consequences of the risk they took on behalf of all the now-dead, widowed, and orphaned?
GO BANKRUPT? Yeah, but the planes will still be there, the pilots will still be there. The shareholders and managers will take it in the pants BUT THAT'S HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE! Take risks, manage them badly, go bust. Happens all the time.
Defenses are almost always invented AFTER the offense has worked at least once.
There is no preventive action that will be certain to work in all cases at a price we are willing to pay.
If we ban all weapons on planes, then we must amputate the hands and feet of all passengers. The reason is many people can kill with their bare hands and feet. Five or Six people with trained hands and feet could take over a plane by killing some passengers to establish authority.
Can you imagine the reaction to five unarmed men taking over a plane and claiming they were going to Cuba from New York? They certainly would not say they planned to take out the White House. What would passengers do if they said they were going to land at DC and let the passengers off and only take the Crew to Cuba? How many would take the risk of attacking the highjackers? How many passengers would help the highjackers restrain any one who tried to attack the highjackers? People would want to believe the highjackers. If the High Jackers looked more European than middle Eastern and spoke with French accents, would htat effect your judgement? If our President ordered the plane shot down, what would our conspiracy guys say about our KILLER president?
The point is highjackers don't need anything but hands and feet of several trained killers as long as the only defense against them is defensive in nature. If we get a gadget to sniff explosives, they will find a way to pack an explosive that can not be sniffed or seen by xray or other means. They have lots of oil money. They send their "good" young people to the best universities in the world. Check out the graduate students at MIT for a clue.
Safety can only come from making attacks counter productive. If people are willing to die for a cause,we must destory the cause. People who will die for a cause will not do anything that will result in the total destruction of their cause.
Finally we say you can't do that, because there are "Good" people in the nations we would have to destroy. Of course there are "Good" people in the lands that harbor the terrorists. We killed a million of "good" Japanese and "good" Germans in world war II. You see the WWII generation had this strange desire to do what ever it took to live in safety and peace. In WWII the focus was on our lives and safety. Others lives and safetey were not as important to the WWII generaton as our own lives and safety.
Consider this If the "Bad" people in those nations killed the "Good" people in those nations, the "Good" people in those nations would kill the "Bad" people in those nations. The "Good" people in those nations are not all that bothered if the "bad" people only kill us. Some of those "Good" people cheer our deaths.
If the "Good" people were certain we would kill them as well as the "Bad" people for the actions of "Bad" people in their nation, they would not allow "Bad" people to exist in their country. They would prevent the "bad" people from being "bad" and we would be safe and secure. Have you ever heard the phrase "You ain't gettin' me killed!"? "Good" people do not harbor "bad" people if the consequences are bad for both "Good" and "Bad" people.
Finally consider this. With out external force no nation can have a government its people do not want. When a nation's army refuses to shoot the people the government says to shoot, and that nations cops refuse to arrest the people its government says to arrest, that government is no longer in charge of that nation. The government falls.
Whoever the army and cops then choose to obey becomes the new govenment. It is always true. When the privates turn their weapons on the generals the generals call the privates "SIR".
We have a current example of a people opposed to a government and the King Dictator of that nation bending to the peoples will. King Fayd of Saudi Arabia says he would like to support us more, but he would be overthrown if he went after the Taliban or its local supporters. That means Militant Muslims who desire the death of Amercians are a more powerful force in Saudi Arabi than the King. I'm sure that is true. Dictators and kings that want to stay dictators and Kings do the will of the people. What we have trouble understanding is that the "peoples" will can be very bad. But it is in most of the Muslim world.
Do you think that destroying Afghanistan will surpress the hatred and desire to take action against us of a majority of Saudi Arabian citizens? Do you think no action will just encourage them?
They say Saudi Arabia is our best Arab friend. We know what the Iraqis, Syrians, Palistinians, and Iranians want to do to us. What part of Death to th infidel don't you understand? There will be terrorists trying to kill us as long as the "Good" Muslims tolerate them.
The choice may very well be between YOU dying or a "good" Arab dying. Where do you come down? The first reaction is to say that is not the choice. Or as one Jew said to the other,"This is Germany we Jews have been here for well over a thousand years and the Germans have not killed us. There are many "good" Germans. They are not going to kill us. We Jews have to understand this is just German frustration over losing WWI. They are just taking it out on us, and this will pass. Be patient." That attitude cost 6 million Jews their lives.
There was a CBS story filed by Teddy White in early 1934. Teddy later wrote "The Making of a President" series of books. In a 1934 broadcast story Teddy reported that Hitler had said in a speech that he intended to kill all the Jews. The story said, "Observers here are certain that Hitler is just appealing to his more radical Jew hating supporters. The question of the hour here in Berlin is, what does Hitler really intend to do with the Jews."
The question as Teddy so aptly put it on CBS some 77 years ago, is what do the militant Arabs really intend to do. Observers are still uncertain. Media observers always are.
The millions and millions of militant Arab Muslims are not.
Exactly. We're on the same wavelength here.
If the public wants safety, they'll get it, if the market is allowed to work.
They safety worked. It kept all guns off the plane. The government said you can't highjack a plane with out guns or bombs. These guys did it with out guns or bombs. PHD's and people paid $20,000 per minute would not have stopped this.
Can you imagine the out cry if someone had kept these guys off the plane. They were Arabs with legal knives under the law. Sarah Brady type lawyers made the rules. NO govenment mandated rules were violated. What if they had more stringent searches. The highjackers would have just observed the rules and found a way around them.
How does money improve the quality of the search when the highjackers passed the required search. They can and will make the rules much harder. The highjackers will find a way to succeed no matter what the rules for travel are.
A terrorists could wear belt with at least 20 inches of cat gut thread sewn into it. He could carry a ball point pen and pencil in his breast pocket. He could go to the john on the plane and remove the cat gut thread from his belt. He would come out of the John and call the stew over as if he were in severe pain. When she comes up he slip the gut string around her neck using the pens as handles and cuts her jugular vein with it. This method was the silent way to kill German guards in WWII. It was used by the resistance in France. They of course had no reason to hide the gut string as thread in a belt, but that is were they got some of it they used to kill.
Back to our highjacking senerio. The terrorists then drops the dying stew and grabs a lady passenger the same way and screams if any pasenger moves the lady gets it.
His assistants have at the same time used the same weapons to hold several passengers.
BINGO the plane is highjacked.
Sears has every thing. Including mens belts sewn with a material as strong and sharp as cat gut.
Would it have made these people feel better if the people who let men with a pen, pencils and leather belts on board had advanced degrees and were paid $10,000 per minute?
If they make ball point pens illegal, can they take a babby on board with a couple of rattles for handles and cat gut string hidden in dirty diapers?
The Germans disarmed all the French during the occupation of France during WWII. The resistance still found ways to kill Germans.
Are lives more valuable in Planes than they are in cars?
It's common knowledge that these terrorists will die for their cause. We know the airlines aren't inspecting checked bags. We're in a war. It's going to happen again. We might be able to fight against the terrorist with catgut, but we are TOTALLY DEFENSELESS against a checked bomb.
Truly! I carried a .32 when I was 14 (we lived in a farming area), and never gave it a second thought.
I carried it going to school, and later, working in Detroit. I carried on countless plane trips simply because it made sense when going to a strange city.
When I moved to South Bend in 1970, somehow, I didn't feel like I needed it anymore, and stopped carrying.
Now, 30 years later, I feel like I should be packing a grenade launcher! Truly, 'a different time'....FRegards
Short positions?
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