What the Terrorists Want

[acmejack]

On August 16, two men were escorted off a plane headed for Manchester, England, because some passengers thought they looked either Asian or Middle Eastern, might have been talking Arabic, wore leather jackets, and looked at their watches -- and the passengers refused to fly with them on board. The men were questioned for several hours and then released.

On August 15, an entire airport terminal was evacuated because someone's cosmetics triggered a false positive for explosives. The same day, a Muslim man was removed from an airplane in Denver for reciting prayers. The Transportation Security Administration decided that the flight crew overreacted, but he still had to spend the night in Denver before flying home the next day. The next day, a Port of Seattle terminal was evacuated because a couple of dogs gave a false alarm for explosives.

On August 19, a plane made an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida, after the crew became suspicious because two of the lavatory doors were locked. The plane was searched, but nothing was found. Meanwhile, a man who tampered with a bathroom smoke detector on a flight to San Antonio was cleared of terrorism, but only after having his house searched.

On August 16, a woman suffered a panic attack and became violent on a flight from London to Washington, so the plane was escorted to the Boston airport by fighter jets. "The woman was carrying hand cream and matches but was not a terrorist threat," said the TSA spokesman after the incident.

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0609.html

[Totallybushed]

1. The author is

an ass. Terrorism is a tactic, that I can agree with. But it's not just for the love of terrorizing. It always has a specific goal.

Steps must, MUST, be taken to curb or minimize it. Obviously, the present administrataion has no workable plan. But neither do those who say, "We must go about our business without fear", or those idiots who say, "A few thousand Americans per year is the price we must pay for being a superpower".

Yep, we fearlessly, some would say stupidly, go about our business and get our heads chopped off, or our baby carriages blown up. And, oh, boy, it's worth it to see our pregnant daughters slaughtered on an airplane trip home to see us, just so we can be a superpower.

NO! We have to protect ourselves regardless of the legitimacy of the complaints of other peoples against us. I would love to see a true and vigorous debate on how. The administration has shown that they don't know how, but at least they are doing something other than trying to "understand" our enemies. The Dems could really, and I mean REALLY, pick up some votes if they convinced Americans that they had a plan to protect them. It's not "fear" that drives the war on terror, it's outrage against killers of the innocent. And it is not a moral disaster to insist than the safety of Americans comes first. After that is assured, whatever legitimate grievances the supporters of terror have can be addressed.

The current policies are a disaster, but simply pointing that out will not be enough to gain us any political power. An effective and reasonble alternative policy, one that does not depend solely on the reasonableness and good-will (which have yet to be shown) of our opponents.

Do this, and the Dems can remain in power for a long time.