Latest Terrorist attempt

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Being shaken by an ordeal is a small price to pay, for the safety of those who are just minding their own business in their own homes and places of work.

Sounds similar to what happened to anyone Oriental-looking after Pearl Harbor was bombed.

[Shawnee123]

Oh well. So be it.

You know it's not the same, but you're on that horse of righteousness and represent all that is good. Ride on, cowboy, ride on.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Oh well. So be it.

You know it's not the same,

How exactly is what you posted so different? Please enlighten us.

[classicman]

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has revised her talking points.‬‪

Yesterday, Napolitano downplayed the ability of Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab’s ability to get on the Northwest Airlines flight with explosives – and despite his father’s warnings to the US Embassy in Nigeria about his son’s extremist religious views – focusing instead on accentuating the positive.

“Once the incident occurred, the system worked,” she told me on This Week on Sunday. “The passengers reacted correctly, the crew reacted correctly, within an hour to 90 minutes, all 128 flights in the air had been notified. And those flights already had taken mitigation measures on the off-chance that there was somebody else also flying with some sort of destructive intent.”‬‪

This morning she took to the airwaves with a slightly different message.‬‪

“Our system did not work in this instance,” Napolitano said on the TODAY show this morning. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way."
Ah.

Link
Thanks for telling the rest of us what we already knew. . . Next!

A few days later the President finally speaks...

"The American people should be assured that we are doing everything in our power to keep you and your family safe and secure during this busy holiday season," Obama told reporters.
"A full investigation has been launched into this attempted act of terrorism, and we will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable," he said.

A wing of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day attack.

Abdulmutallab has told U.S. investigators that the group's operatives in Yemen supplied him with an explosive device and trained him on how to detonate it, officials said.

Link
Does anyone else feel that we just got lucky on this one?

[TheMercenary]

Napolitano is a dumb ass. She got caught up in playing the shift blame game. No surprise.

[classicman]

Whatever - I'm serious. Is there anything we can really do about this. Its one thing to address measures on flights within the US, but with flights coming in from other countries, can we trust their security measures? Apparently not.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by classicman

Sounds similar to what happened to anyone Oriental-looking after Pearl Harbor was bombed.

You know, I don't think I've ever heard how many spies and saboteurs they netted with that move?

[DanaC]

One of the problems with profiling is that it has a tendency to net people who 'look suspicious'. That means we begin to count all arabs as looking suspicious, and in particular any arab who presents a traditional arabic appearance (dress, beard etc). That makes it very easy for those who actually do mean harm to circumvent the system by doing their best to look unsuspicious: by wearing western clothes, by shaving their beard etc. Consequently, the ones most likely to be pulled in by profiling are the ones least likely to be up to no good.

If you were intent on bombing a plane; would you turn up to the airport wearing robes and a long beard? Or would you be clean-shaven and wearing a suit? Would you be gathered together in clumps speaking in your own language, or would you be boarding separately having learned and adopted an American accent?

Profiling is a very wide net which catches far too many people and notoriously allows through the very people you want to stop. In doing so you antagonise and potentially criminalise those whose support you most need.

It's particularly fraught when it comes to something like Islamic identities; given that ethnicity amongst the faithful is very wide indeed. So, do you stop anyone with black skin in case they come from an islamic part of Africa? Do you stop anyone with a moslem sounding name? Perhaps Obama, or Mohammed? How many of your own citizens re you going to hang a cloud of suspicion over? How many generations of settled American citizenry have now been deemed suspect because of actions taken by foreign radicals?

It doesn't keep you safe. Actual intelligence keeps you safe, or rather it should do, if the warnings are listened to and acted upon. Which in this case they clearly werent.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

Whatever - I'm serious. Is there anything we can really do about this. Its one thing to address measures on flights within the US, but with flights coming in from other countries, can we trust their security measures? Apparently not.

Would it be possible for us to control the security at the origin point of any flight that will enter the US? With GOVERNMENT employees, not privatized-McDonald's-reject-minimum-wage rent-a-cops?

I don't see why we can't limit the number of people who enter the US - there's really not a need for a good percentage of these people to come into my country, IMHO.

[DanaC]

I really don't see how retreating into splendid isolation would help America. How would you reduce the numbers? On what criteria? What would that do to your tourist industry? How many jobs would be lost if fewer people travelled to visit America? The people who don't 'need' to be there are people who are there to visit and spend money.

[Griff]

I shouldn't be, but I'm amazed that the Democrat and Republican (sympathizers) have now flipped positions from the W administration. Now the Dems are spouting xenophobic nonsense and the Reps are defending freedom of movement. It is to laugh.

That sounds harsh as I read it but it is what I'm hearing.

[Pie]

It's a global economy. You can't shut that down, not without committing economic suicide.

The only 'system' that works is having the attacker get swarmed by his fellow passengers in 0.001 seconds. Everything else is window dressing. Inconvenient, racist and ineffective window dressing.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by classicman

How exactly is what you posted so different? Please enlighten us.

I don't think the collective "us" you speak of needs enlightened. Frankly, most of these folks think for themselves. As far as enlightening you, you don't listen to anyone anyway. So, bite me.

For everyone else: I know my thinking isn't right. It goes against everything I've ever felt about humans and diversity...

I struggle with this feeling. Working where I do, MANY walks of life seem suspect. Where do you think they'll target next? Large schools? Libraries? Museums? When a kid (which this last guy was pretty much) believes that blowing up a plane, and dying for a religious idea, is honorable, how are any of us to not be at least a little apprehensive when you pass a group of folks and they're speaking in tongues and looking around furtively? When explosives are carried around in their undies...how can we know?

Not proud of this feeling. Perhaps it'll pass, but the terrorists score small victories every day in people like me, in airport security issues, in distrust, in not wanting to travel overseas...

It is up to me to overcome the distrust.

I agree with Dana that intelligence, not fear, is what should keep us safe. The last administration was too busy having coffee with the Bin Ladens. Maybe we'll get better.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I really don't see how retreating into splendid isolation would help America. How would you reduce the numbers? On what criteria? What would that do to your tourist industry? How many jobs would be lost if fewer people travelled to visit America? The people who don't 'need' to be there are people who are there to visit and spend money.

Those are good questions. I was thinking more "grand scheme of things" rather than specifics, but...

How would you reduce the numbers? Just not let as many people in. Stop them at the source.

On what criteria? That's the difficult one. "Need" to me isn't the same as "need" to someone else.

What would that do to your tourist industry? How many jobs would be lost if fewer people travelled to visit America? The people who don't 'need' to be there are people who are there to visit and spend money. That's the eternal question: where is the balance between spending (or losing) money and security? There's no pleasing everyone on this point. Nobody wants to be inconvenienced when trying to fly. Nobody wants to be (or their loved ones to be) blown up. Nobody wants the terrorists to win, whatever that means. Given the ultimate option of losing one's job or being blown up, I think most Americans would choose to lose their job.

Originally Posted by Griff

I'm shouldn't be, but I'm amazed that the Democrat and Republican (sympathizers) have now flipped positions from the W administration. Now the Dems are spouting xenophobic nonsense and the Reps are defending freedom of movement. It is to laugh.

That sounds harsh as I read it but it is what I'm hearing.

I can only speak for myself, but on 911, I said we should close the borders for awhile. And not because my mother and sister were killed in the WTC.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

... When explosives are carried around in their undies...how can we know?
....

For purposes of air travel, I say we strip search everyone. I volunteer to search women, ages 21 to 50, C cup or greater. People should have to really want to fly.