Posted on 05/31/2002 6:38:35 PM PDT by TLBSHOW
Folks, an Israeli expert on the airline security subject said that the basic difference between the way Israelis and Americans screen passengers is that the Israelis look for terrorists, and the Americans look for weapons. He said we're focusing on the wrong thing - but that means we have to look for Muslim-Arab men, and once you start doing that, then all sorts of grief descends upon you as a racial profiler.
You've heard stories about nuns being pulled out of lines while waiting to go through a metal detector because there's "suspicion" she might be carrying a pair of deadly knitting needles or something. What are the odds a nun is going to hijack an airplane? Has one ever hijacked or tried to hijack an airplane?
Now, what are the odds that a young, Muslim-Arab male is going to hijack an airplane? They're pretty good, within the universe of those who do the hijackings. But we can't publicly use that criteria in America because that would be racial profiling. In fact, there is an excellent column related to this by an admitted leftist, Nicholas Kristof, in The New York Times. He writes as a liberal, saying that we're going to have to change some of our views on this racial profiling stuff.
Here's another outrage: the AP reported on Friday that American Airlines chief executive, Donald Carty, said another terrorist attack against commercial airlines was unlikely and urged that some security measures be dropped. There's an amazing companion story to this about a decorated war hero from Texas who ran into a security problem at San Francisco International Airport because he was carrying a tiny pair of wire cutters - which he needed to cut his wired jaw in case he vomited from in-air bumpiness.
This guy, who was shot in the face while fighting the enemy in Afghanistan, had to surrender the wire cutters and take the risk of flying home without them. This is a classic example of what the Israelis said about how we look for weapons, and they look for terrorists. It also illustrates what Carty said about how we're going overboard.
We were originally told we'd have about 30,000 federalized security workers, now the number has almost tripled. The doors to the treasury in this country are wide open. We are hiring more people and spending more money, and all we're doing is confounding the air travel system - and adding more dues-paying union members for the liberals to exploit. I hear horror story after horror story after horror story these days.
I ran into Jim Gray when I went to play golf at Joe Buck's golf tournament a couple of weeks ago, and he said he had a three-and-a-half hour wait at Las Vegas airport just to get through the metal detectors. He had no other way to go because there was only one entry into the terminal that day. Three-and-a-half hours just to get through the metal detectors! That's going a little bit too far.
You're right.
If that third airliner had crashed into the Capitol Building instead of the Pentagon, Political Correctness would have died, once and for all, on September 11, 2001.
And guess why? It works! Simple commonsense.
The only people I know that are against it are radical socialists.
And we're launching Faith-Based Initiatives? Can anyone guess how they will be used?
By the way, there were Muslim chaplains on the ships taking our guys to fight in Afghanistan.
As for hiring FBI agents who speak Arabic: how about Christian ones?
But even more basic than any of these: HOW 'BOUT JUST DEPORTING ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS????
That being the case, maybe the terrorists will do us all a favor and leave the cities alone and nuke D.C.
I don't want to see any cities attacked, but if it's "going to happen" then by golly I can think of no better place for it. Sure would solve a lot of problems.
Once removed
They don't have to use "white collaborators". They could use Bosnian and Albanian muslims, African and African-American muslims, and Anglo-muslim converts like "Johnny Jihad" Lindh--NONE of whom look Middle Eastern or South Asian,and many of whom would be willing terrorists indeed. In fact, there are people of all of these descriptions who are active terrorists already.
As for where to get Arabic-speaking FBI agents, these people are truly dumb-dumb!!! There are readily available Arabic classes in many college/university extension schools--why not send some of their best agents to these classes? Or simply hire good language tutors (Arab Christians, perhaps)? Or hire American graduates of Middle Eastern studies departments (those that are not convinced "Arabists", anyway)?
From the Christian Science Monitor, the article quotes Israeli security experts.\
Mrs Kus
My prediction: They'd rather us be dead than they be "wrong."
It is amazing to me we are still blaming everything that happens on the Democrats - we have the House, we are equal (almost) in the Senate and we have the WH. We should have the cabinet, although that is debatable. And everything that is happening is the fault of the Democrats? Boy they can work wonders if they can pull the strings of all these Republicans.
Personally, I think you are giving too much credit to the Democrats.
That may be true but the Democrats have the Liberal news media that is more than happy to throw out the "Racist Ethnic Profiling Card" against every Republican in Washington. The Liberal news media has the vast majority of the Sheeple population that does not know what to think about an issue until Katie Couric tells them what to think. Unfortunately, the Sheeple vote is the swing vote in American politics and can decide if the 2002-2004 Congress is completely Democrat controlled or not.
We are not "equal" in the Senate. A Senate majority is not something that can be shared. Just that one-vote Democrat majority has stonewalled Bush's appointees and can prevent any legislation the Democrats oppose from reaching the President's desk for signature into law.
However, at some point, leaders needs to have moral courage to do what is right regardless of the political cost.
You are correct that the Democrats are not all-powerful. Ethnic profiling has to be used in this War on Radical Muslim Terrorism. The need for such profiling needs to be effectively communicated to the American public in language that even the Sheeple can understand. The inevitable "Race Card" that will be thrown out by the Liberal media and the Democrats needs to be dealt with.
After that, the political chips will fall where they may in November 2002.
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