The Great Nigerian Terror Snafu
I was going to try and stay off the blog until New Year but have too many and very disparate reactions to the failed terror bombing in Detroit. I am way too much in an off-the-grid mind set to try and construct any rational narrative. So, forewarned, here’s my disparate reactions.
– I’m glad to see President Obama man-up and admit there was, indeed, a system failure that helped facilitate this bombing attempt. No kidding. A wealthy, powerful Nigerian banker walks into the U.S. Embassy and tells them his kid is thinking about setting off bombs and “the system” is incapable of seeing if this guy has, say, a current multiple-entry visa for entrance into the U.S. Yup, I would call that a failure. As big a failure as DHS chief Janet Napoloitano’s jackass performance on the Sunday shows where she mumbled something about the “system worked.” Too bad her boss had to scurry behind her to scoop up her verbal droppings.
– I love all the mumbo-jumbo about this or that database. We now learn there are three or four levels and that the largest (which the suspect was on) has only a 1/2 million names. If you make the first list, excuse me, why don’t you get automatically promoted to the no-fly list? Or at least the Search Very Closely list? Makes no sense. Let’s put this in perspective. A half million person data base can be managed and searched instantly on one $1100 MacBook Pro. It just took Google .36 seconds to find 152 million references to the suspect. [ Results 1 - 10 of about 152,000,000 for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. (0.36 seconds) ]. What’s the hang-up? Doesn’t it take about 100 times longer for a check-in clerk to type in about 394 characters to confirm your seat number?
– That said, I find much of the post-Detroit debate rather sterile. Whatever position one takes there’s still the underlying illusion i.e. that some or another system, mechanism, or bureaucracy is actually capable of guaranteeing safety. This brings me back to my halcyon high school days of reading Nietzche and with what gusto he mocked those who sought order, harmony, sense and peace from a cold, uncaring and Godless universe. There are no guarantees. And what happened in Detroit was not the fault of the Dutch, the TSA, Obama, Napolitano or George W. Bush. It was, rather, an incident emblematic of the ongoing, inevitable and irrevocable failure of all bureaucracies and human systems. Put two people or more in one place and you have automatic dysfunction. Does the NYPD or the LAPD guarantee no criminal activity in the Big Apple and the Big Nowhere? Does locking up criminals behind bars and steel and detectors and hounded by heavily armed guards in the most controlled of atmospheres guarantee no contraband? No rape? No stabbings, no murder? It usually facilitates it. no?
– He might have somewhat different motivation than I do but that takes nothing away from this response by Chris Hitchens to our own collective response. So we will have more restrictions now. Our shoes AND our undies will be searched. The X-ray machine wattage will be cranked up. Folks will be moved from one list to another. As a result, those motivated by God to attack us will be thwarted in some of their strategies. New ones will be invented. Such is the nature of warfare. An excerpt:
Why do we fail to detect or defeat the guilty, and why do we do so well at collective punishment of the innocent? The answer to the first question is: Because we can’t—or won’t. The answer to the second question is: Because we can. The fault here is not just with our endlessly incompetent security services, who give the benefit of the doubt to people who should have been arrested long ago or at least had their visas and travel rights revoked. It is also with a public opinion that sheepishly bleats to be made to “feel safe.” The demand to satisfy that sad illusion can be met with relative ease if you pay enough people to stand around and stare significantly at the citizens’ toothpaste. My impression as a frequent traveler is that intelligent Americans fail to protest at this inanity in case it is they who attract attention and end up on a no-fly list instead. Perfect.
– Consequently, we focus more on what people wear or carry rather than the people doing the wearing. That is NOT a covert argument for racial profiling, But I get profiled, so I’m entitled to speak out on this touchy subject. More than profiled, I’m actually on the Must Select and Search List. Why? Because I have a pacemaker-like device that can’t go through a metal detector. So every time I fly, there I am in a special inspection line along with other wearers of medical devices, steel implants, geriatrics and disabled and wheel-chair bound passengers. We are all hand-searched, patted down, have our waist belts and our undie elastic searched — even the bottoms of our sock-clad feet! As if Al Qaeda would put a bomb on a wheel chair, knowing upfront it gets special scrutiny. Makes absolutely no sense. Little in this world does.
December 30th, 2009 at 8:02 am
A major part of the problem, Marc is the criteria used in granting visas. I have been with family members applying for visas at the US consulate i n Rio both before and after 9/11. The criteria was always money and the likelihood of the person’s returning after the trip. Personally, I’d much rather have poor, honest, hardworking people come here to improve their lot in life than a rich, mentally and emotionally screwed up person come here to let his derangement manifest itself in violent acts of terrorism or let some rich fanatic with an axe to grind into the country.
But hey, that’s just me.
Since 9/11, by the way, every time I have traveled alone from Brazil, I always get a separate checked luggage inspection right after I finish my check. When Mércia and I have traveled together, they never do that. One doesn’t have to be a genius to realize how easy it is to get around that.
December 30th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
I have arguments with my wife about airport security – she thinks its a total joke, I think it’s only marginally effectual but necessary and I don’t object. I would like to point out, however, that it only becomes brain-dead stupid to secret bombs in devices that get special scrutiny – such as a wheel chair – if, in fact, they actually do get the special scrutiny. I think one way to deal with problems such as yours is to allow folks, especially people with pacemakers, etc., who fly often domestically to apply for a super-duper ID card that limits them to the minimal baggage x-ray.
December 30th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Related articles that Marc missed.
Barack Obama gets an ‘F’ for protecting Americans
Napolitano’s got the solution to TSA bungling: unionize them, because that way we’ll know TSA for its overpaid and corrupt management instead of its incompetence .
US plots retaliatory strikes against al-Qaida in Yemen over plane bomber
• Effort under way to find Nigerian’s handlers
• Obama expecting report on incident today
Ann Coulter: “If Obama Instituted Racial Profiling, I’d Vote For Him!”
Obama Rushed To Bunker Over CIA Terror Strike
Finally, an outrageous attack on free speech.
Colorado transportation worker investigated for work email depicting Obama shining Palin’s shoes.
In that picture, maybe Obama was really searching for a shoe bomber.
December 30th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
How many TSA employees does it take to stop a terrorist?
Nobody knows, they’ve never done it.
December 30th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Then I guess the Bush admin pissed away billions hiring a bunch of clowns.
December 30th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Yeah, if only all TSA employees were unionized could we expect them to do their jobs.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:51 am
The scrutiny by which Obama is placed under by both the mainstream press and Republicans in relation to his handling of the Christmas Day bomb attempt is in direct contrast to the scant attention paid to Bush’s mishandling/non-handling of Richard Reid’s attempted shoe bombing in December 2001, reports Joan Walsh in Salon.
Sounds like yet another double standard. With Republicans constantly demanding higher standards of Democrats than of themselves, it does make the mind reel. You have to wonder if there was anything that Obama could have said or done that wouldn’t have made King, Hokstram, et al blow their tops.
Pathetic.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:52 am
I meant Pete Hokstra.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:28 am
Yeah, the press always gave Bush a pass and always come down on Obama.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:51 am
I agree with some of this.
Is aviation security mostly for show?
Then, there’s how Obama officials want to handle security.
TSA Threatens Blogger Who Posted New Screening Directive
I guess the TSA doesn’t see blogging as a form of journalism, covered by Freedom of the Press. You would think that a blogger that helps terrorists would be given the same slack that the New York Times received when it told terrorists how we track their financial transactions.
December 31st, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Actually, Woody, circa 2000 to 2006 the press always
DID give Bush a pass, most shamefully, for his inept
performance on Sept 11, 2001. Christopher Hitchens,
who FUNCTIONED FOR YEARS AS A PRIMARY PROPAGANDIST
for Bush, helped this process in every way he could.
Cooper, who gives this McCarthite ingrate a pass
at every opportunity, and even endorses his selling
out of friends to Ken Starr, debases himself when he
uses this blog to promote this cheap lowlife’s
career.
January 1st, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Here’s Obama’s TSA nominee that some here are supporting.
I bet that he cheated on his taxes, too.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
it only becomes brain-dead stupid to secret bombs in devices that get special scrutiny – such as a wheel chair – if, in fact, they actually do get the special scrutiny
That requires a depth of thought that is out of reach of reactive minds like “Hey, pal” Cooper.