Hi,
You are large on casting down what you think is foolish, but I don't read any of your brilliant suggestions on something you think would be more effective.
An idiot's argument. I don't need to be a major league pitcher to recognize poor pitching. Similarly, I don't need to run the country to see that it is being run by fundamentalist fanatical idiots. Given that terrorism is an international problem, that the Europeans, the Indians, the Israelis have all had to deal with it since the mid 50's or before, the failure to put together an international force against terrorism and the ability to alienate almost every country on earth does not smack of capable leadership.
More effective? Start with the fact that terrorism is not a form of warfare, it is a form of crime. One does not combat crime by nuking the regions of high crime. One focuses on the individuals and uses intelligence (both the "smarts" variety and the military variety) to capture the individuals involved. Want to know what to do about terrorism, look at what the Israelis did after the Olympic village shootings. Now, get permission from all the countries involved to work within their borders. Not only cheaper than an invasion, but it might actually accomplish the objective. But it doesn't play as big in Peoria as the flash bang of a John Wayne invasion.
I would say that it did. I doubt a collection of dubious characters with questionable documents would go by unquestioned today.
Are you blind, do you choose not to see, or have you not been in an airport since 9/11? By "dubious characters", I presume you mean people with big noses, a dark complexion and a full beard. Preferably stinking of camel dung and wearing a turban. Because, after all, we all know those ragheads all look alike and can easily be picked out by the well trained minimum wage government employees manning the security gates and making us take off our sneakers to make sure we don't have an assault rifle hidden in them. And, of course, its so difficult to get a driver's license, the only document needed, that not even thousands of teenagers can do it.
The only meaningful thing that has changed in air travel is that the crew will no longer tamely turn their plane over to anyone demanding it and a plane load of passengers will no longer sit with their thumbs up their buts and let a plane be hijacked. And neither of those changes has a damned thing to do with Homeland Security. As to the safety of air travel, we looked into it fifteen years or so ago and found hundreds of ways that arms and explosives could get onto commercial flights. Even more if one didn't care which particular flight. About six of those holes have been plugged.
So, no, I don't think air travel is one bit safer now than it was pre 9/11 because of anything the HS office has done. Most of what has been done is more along the lines of looking like the problem is being worked rather than actually solving the problem. More of the typical Shrub perception rather than performance.
but it seems that having coordination of these hundreds of ports of entry and disparate agencies is a good thing.
Really? In what way other than making the greatly increased paperwork a bit more uniform? The failure was one of intelligence, caused by "right thinking" people who were too uptight to permit the intelligence agencies to use scumbags as sources. That problem didn't need more supervision to fix, it needed less (and by people with more vision). As to the rest, the illegal immigrant problem has by no means been fixed. If illiterate, unprepared, uneducated people can still get into the country in large numbers, you think the measures taken by HS are going to keep trained agents out? If so, I'd suggest you go get a reality check.
But, if you look around you will see as I do a disturbing clamor for appeasment.
Again, faulty thinking. You argue as if the only choices are appeasement and continuing the spasm this administration has been having. I maintain that there are many other choices, some of which actually make sense and have a hope of addressing the problem. Just because some of us didn't upgrade our impression of Shrub's intelligence because of 9/11 doesn't mean that we don't want something done. Indeed, my greatest complaint is that nothing *effective* is being done in spite of the time, the people, and the money wasted by the present batch of incompetents.
--Pete
You are large on casting down what you think is foolish, but I don't read any of your brilliant suggestions on something you think would be more effective.
An idiot's argument. I don't need to be a major league pitcher to recognize poor pitching. Similarly, I don't need to run the country to see that it is being run by fundamentalist fanatical idiots. Given that terrorism is an international problem, that the Europeans, the Indians, the Israelis have all had to deal with it since the mid 50's or before, the failure to put together an international force against terrorism and the ability to alienate almost every country on earth does not smack of capable leadership.
More effective? Start with the fact that terrorism is not a form of warfare, it is a form of crime. One does not combat crime by nuking the regions of high crime. One focuses on the individuals and uses intelligence (both the "smarts" variety and the military variety) to capture the individuals involved. Want to know what to do about terrorism, look at what the Israelis did after the Olympic village shootings. Now, get permission from all the countries involved to work within their borders. Not only cheaper than an invasion, but it might actually accomplish the objective. But it doesn't play as big in Peoria as the flash bang of a John Wayne invasion.
I would say that it did. I doubt a collection of dubious characters with questionable documents would go by unquestioned today.
Are you blind, do you choose not to see, or have you not been in an airport since 9/11? By "dubious characters", I presume you mean people with big noses, a dark complexion and a full beard. Preferably stinking of camel dung and wearing a turban. Because, after all, we all know those ragheads all look alike and can easily be picked out by the well trained minimum wage government employees manning the security gates and making us take off our sneakers to make sure we don't have an assault rifle hidden in them. And, of course, its so difficult to get a driver's license, the only document needed, that not even thousands of teenagers can do it.
The only meaningful thing that has changed in air travel is that the crew will no longer tamely turn their plane over to anyone demanding it and a plane load of passengers will no longer sit with their thumbs up their buts and let a plane be hijacked. And neither of those changes has a damned thing to do with Homeland Security. As to the safety of air travel, we looked into it fifteen years or so ago and found hundreds of ways that arms and explosives could get onto commercial flights. Even more if one didn't care which particular flight. About six of those holes have been plugged.
So, no, I don't think air travel is one bit safer now than it was pre 9/11 because of anything the HS office has done. Most of what has been done is more along the lines of looking like the problem is being worked rather than actually solving the problem. More of the typical Shrub perception rather than performance.
but it seems that having coordination of these hundreds of ports of entry and disparate agencies is a good thing.
Really? In what way other than making the greatly increased paperwork a bit more uniform? The failure was one of intelligence, caused by "right thinking" people who were too uptight to permit the intelligence agencies to use scumbags as sources. That problem didn't need more supervision to fix, it needed less (and by people with more vision). As to the rest, the illegal immigrant problem has by no means been fixed. If illiterate, unprepared, uneducated people can still get into the country in large numbers, you think the measures taken by HS are going to keep trained agents out? If so, I'd suggest you go get a reality check.
But, if you look around you will see as I do a disturbing clamor for appeasment.
Again, faulty thinking. You argue as if the only choices are appeasement and continuing the spasm this administration has been having. I maintain that there are many other choices, some of which actually make sense and have a hope of addressing the problem. Just because some of us didn't upgrade our impression of Shrub's intelligence because of 9/11 doesn't mean that we don't want something done. Indeed, my greatest complaint is that nothing *effective* is being done in spite of the time, the people, and the money wasted by the present batch of incompetents.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?