Racial profiling by idiots.

[AKIron]

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
How could have Bush gotten the CIA and FBI to talk to each other and ease the flow of threat information? Oh wait, I know...  But remember youre against that little piece of legislation, arent you?

I think Pongo was referring to the guy that was in charge of the country for 8 years just prior to the attack.

[J_A_B]

Pongo, do you think the terrorist scum are stupid?  

They aren't.   They're quite crafty and they plan things years in advance.   They test the system for weaknesses before actually attacking.  If our airport security was "impossible" to get through, then the scumbags would simply have found some OTHER method to meet Allah and take a bunch of Americans with them.  They're not stupid enough to waste limited resources on an attack that has no chance of success.  Heck, look at their 9/11/01 attack plan--it had multiple layers of safeguards and redundancy built right in to ensure that it at least partially worked (And rememer, it wasn't flawless--one of the planes failed to reach its target).


It was indeed virtually inevitable.  Maybe not the WTC attack specifically...but SOMETHING bad was going to happen.  If a large group of individuals are determined to kill a lot of people and don't care if they lose their lives in the process, it isn't really possible to consistently stop them.  Look at Isreal--superb security (some americans would call it a police state) yet they get suicide bombed regularly.

Men who want to live fighting men who want to die.  This is what we're dealing with.  You CAN'T defend against it 100%.  

Yes we have stopped some of them, broken up some terrorist cells (those success stories don't seem to get the coverage a disaster gets), but....even if that 1% gets through, you still have people dying.  When that small percent DOES get though....placing blame is pointless.  All you can do is look at the holes in your net that were exploited, and close them, and try to anticipate their next move.

You CANNOT defend against this sort of thing consistently.  The only possible way to defend it is to stamp it out at the source--destroy it completely.  


You would blame the American governent for the actions of delusional madmen.   Why not place the blame where it belongs?  You're blaming the victim, no different than the old-yet-accurate metaphor of blaming a mugging victim for his being mugged.  Blame the criminals, not the victim!

You can only stop some of them.  You can't stop ALL them.  We have been attacked before and we WILL be attacked again.  It is only a matter of time.  


Hindsight is 20/20.  Foresight is not.     Once again--where are all YOUR posts on the dangers of box cutters on commercial planes prior to 9/11/01??  It's awfully easy to dole out blame after the fact from the comfort of your armchair.


J_A_B

[beet1e]

Originally posted by Toad
Passenger knives in excess of that length were sometimes (at the Captain's discretion) carried in the cockpit and returned to the passenger upon unloading.

...and then they banned sharp objects!

[Pongo]

Not going to read all that JAB but I am sure that its all good. Isreal identitied the danger of a plane that was under contol of terrorist in the 1970s and established procedures that under no circumstances would a plane be surrendered to terrorists. You aught not to use Isreal as an example. Stoping a woman with explosives strapped under her robes from entering a market and stoping a man with a knife(or 16! of them) passing through a secure check point to get on an aircraft are two entirely different things.

That is by definiation why we have leaders. So that the goverment will have direction that a majority aggree with and all the varios components of that goverment will work to common goals.


That so many individaul components of the FAA and the Security and intelligence services absolutly failed in thier primary role. The role that justifies thier very existance leads to the one thing they all have in common. Their Leader. And the leader befor him.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Pongo
Their Leader. And the leader befor him.

And the leader before him.

And the leader before him.

And the leader before him.

And the leader before him.

And the leader before him.

And the leader before him.

And the leader before him.

And the leader before him.

The air transport security system has always been more "sizzle than steak". It a simple matter of the economics of securing a system that handles ~ 2 million passengers per day.

Back in 1980 it was clear that the US wasn't willing to pay for true security for air travel. That is, unwilling to pay for security on the order of what El Al practices. The US still isn't willing to pay that much.

The cost is in both money and time, btw. You'd all have to show up much earlier at the airport and fares would go up dramatically to pay for that level of security.

To try and hang the blame on a person or an administration is simply way off base. The "blame" lies with all of us collectively. We simply won't pay or put up with the aggravation of that level of security. That's why there's always going to be the "terrorist" risk.