The naked truth about airline passengers having to bare all at airport security is as much about tourism as terrorism, as much about politics as protecting the flying public from suicide bombers with exploding underpants.
A Nigerian man’s failed attempt to down a Detroit-bound U.S. jetliner Christmas Day by detonating explosives in his boxers touched off an international security frenzy that put airports across North America and Europe into holiday gridlock.
In response, the government here has ordered that Canada’s eight major airports be equipped with controversial “naked scanners” that can see through passengers’ clothes.
The move is aimed at reassuring both the travelling public and Canadian voters, a show of tangible government action in supposed crisis.
There is also no question the technologies are capable of detecting plastic weapons and explosives that wouldn’t trigger existing airport metal detectors.
Most of all, they will help satisfy the U.S. administration’s insistence that all foreign countries with flights heading to the U.S. now have to play by American security rules.
But the one thing all this stripping for Big Brother won’t do is prevent terrorist attacks.
As the U.S. president admitted last week, there is no foolproof way to stop terrorists from attacking an airliner.
Canadian airports are certainly no exception.
[More]
“A clearly angry U.S. president admitted the aborted Christmas attack by the boxer bomber wasn’t so much a failure of airport screening as it was a major snafu by U.S. intelligence agencies..“
Weston could not be more wrong. That “clearly angry President” was feigned. It comes after WH statements of “an isolated extremist” and “the system worked”. The “anger” is Obama the narcissist blaming others, not the “buck stops here” POTUS he pretends to be. This is not just a “snafu”, this is an overall failure of the POTUS to lead. You lead by identifying the problem, discuss options to deal with it and offer hope that goals can be achieved. Then actions speak louder than words. If Obama were a leader the Butt Bomber would not be lawyered up in Detroit, he’d be in Gitmo. Dr K , Charles the Great says:
“Obama said we are at war with al-Qaeda, who are ‘a network of hatred.’ Now, first of all, it’s not just al-Qaeda. It’s jihadism. al-Qaeda is a leading edge of it, but there are imitators, affiliates, cells all over the world. It’s a religious ideology, a religious cult. It’s an extremist cult.
… when you don’t identify what the war is about, you leave everyone cold. And you end up saying, as Obama did, one of our responses … was reaching out and assuring Muslims of an interest in mutual respect, that we understand their aspirations, meaning three items: education, secure job, and security.
Well, the bomber over Detroit was well-educated and he had all the security of a mansion in London. The guy who killed the seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was a doctor. Osama bin Laden is a multimillionaire. This is not about oppression or poverty or lack of education. The Fort Hood shooter had education and security as an army psychiatrist.
He [Obama] will not speak about the nature of the war … That remains incomprehensible.”
Mark Steyn adds:
“The broader psychosis that manifested itself only the other day in an axe murderer breaking into a Danish cartoonist’s home to kill him because he objects to his cartoon is, likewise, a phenomenon of Islam. This is not to say (to go wearily through the motions) that all Muslims are potential suicide bombers and axe murderers.”
http://tinyurl.com/Steyn-article
Sorry, this is so long.
This article demonstrates very clearly the problem in responding to the terrorist threat. Weston was able to write an article about the threat and never once identify the source, namely Islamic extemists or jihadism. How can we prevent the attacks when we cannot name the cause?