After the shoe bomber we now have to remove our shoes at the security line. After the liquid bomber, no more water bottles or liquids over 3oz. After the underwear bomber, airports are deploying equipment to essentially remove our underwear for us.
As shown in these images, scanners are great for catching weapons stuffed into your waistband or hidden in your socks.
The problem is, it’s all pointless. Drug mules routinely smuggle illegal materials on planes every day… and those scanners can’t see into your stomach.
Mules can swallow up to a kilo of material
The bottom line is; you can’t fully secure anything in this world without stripping away everything worth living for. Security has to be equal parts diplomacy and castigation… and usually diplomacy is more effective. Applying diplomacy to shadowy terrorists who operate at the behest of even shadowy-er puppet masters seems both impossible, and slight to every family of a terror victim. However, something better and more effective must be done.
They hate our freedom?
I fully reject the rhetoric “They hate our freedom”… if they just plain hated us, they would have taken down the Statue of Liberty or targets that would inflict much more pain to the total populous. Instead, they went after financial and military targets; Navy boats like the USS Cole, the Whitehouse, the Pentagon, and the WTC are probably what our military would have gone after themselves if they had to plan an attack on the US… which leads me to believe that whoever is leading these terrorists hates our government much more than they hate the American people.
Even so, I can’t help but wonder just what it is that “they” want? The scary thing is; they might not even know anymore. The evolution of terrorism has, in many ways, reflected the transmogrification of the “conservative” in the US.
Simply put; extremely religious people tend to be an easy mark who will do your bidding, no matter how crazy, if you basically tell them “God said to do it”. The traditionally conservative Republican party needed to bolster it’s power base, so they joined forces with primarily Christian political organizations to form neo-conservatives. Ironically this was a deal with the devil. As neocons gained status and power within the party, they eventually gutted it and now walk around DC wearing it’s skin as a suit.
I fear the same thing may be happening to terrorist organizations. Our own rhetoric and propaganda is easy to get hooked by… that’s why it’s called rhetoric and propaganda… otherwise it would just be called bullshit. My point being, if you try to look past it and take the point of view that many of these organizations started as guerrilla warriors… many times backed in some form or another by the good ol’ USA. These guys fought it out with the likes of Russia, France, Britain, etc… sometimes with nothing but dust and junky old weapons. What was the goal? To get those countries and their influences out of their homelands.
Why are we surprised now that these guys are doing the same to us? Well before the first Gulf war, we were poking around looking for both resources and strategic advantages in these places, and they didn’t want us there. I’m sure if they had proper armies, we’d have a proper war on our hands today… but they don’t. They have nothing but the weapons they can buy, steal, or fashion themselves… and the crazy religious zealots they can convince to die for their causes because “Allah said to do it”. Those people are obviously their most dangerous weapons.
But why are civilians targeted? Do they feel that killing civilians is an effective way to forward their goals, or have the religious crazies overrun these organizations and/or running “missions” themselves? With the recent “Jesus Rifle” debacle, it’s really starting to feel like the “war on terror” has gone from a good old fashioned resource war to a deadly religious debate… one the original architects on both sides have long since lost control of.
