Now Wait A Sec
Okay, I'm a little confused and slightly annoyed.
All this brouhaha over Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his underwear bomb (there are plenty of jokes in this situation but at least for now I am not going there)... let's step back a bit here and look at some details at least as I understand them:
1. The TSA was created after September 11th - during the Bush Administration;
2. The Terrorist Database, Watch List and No Fly List were all part of the September 11th response - during the Bush Administration;
3. The boy boarded the plane in Amsterdam (NOT at an American airport where we have control over the security process), was screened and went through security in Amsterdam - they didn't use a full body scanner and the normal scans showed nothing; no dogs were used to sniff out anything odd because this was not part of the normal procedure - body scans over there are possible but were on that day voluntary (they are now going to be mandatory it appears at least for flights to the U.S.);
4. The CIA did not put him on the No Fly List but did add him to the database apparently there wasn't enough info in his father's concern to do more than that - the investigation that has been launched hopefully will clear that tidbit up (although I doubt it, the government is investigating the government and while I like this government better than the last government it IS still the government... did you get all that? good).
Given all of the above why is everyone (and by everyone I mean the Republicans in Congress and the media) yelling at President Obama?
Seems to me the "system" is not new, has been in place for a number of years now having come online during the previous administration. A system that everyone had been praising as being effective (remember all those terrorist plots that were stopped/caught that we never heard details about?) now all of sudden is a horrible failure of the Obama presidency.
Okay so Ms. Napolitano did put her foot in her mouth on the weekend talk shows by saying the system worked. But in effect she was right -- the system did work insofar as its design allowed it to given the info at hand. Should the boy's father have been taken more seriously? Probably. But if the CIA reacted strongly to everyone's suspicion, concern "bad feeling" the do-gooder civil rights people would be all over it in a heartbeat alleging discrimination etc. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Are full body scanners that can see stuff like the underwear bomb? Sure. But they cost about $100,000 each and you know the costs will end up in our airline ticket prices. Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, just be aware it'll cost you. Is the extended wait while going through security worth it? Sure. Just don't bitch about it when it happens to you.
The system isn't perfect. There will never be a perfect system when it is run by imperfect human beings. And the state of the system is not the current president's fault.
All this brouhaha over Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his underwear bomb (there are plenty of jokes in this situation but at least for now I am not going there)... let's step back a bit here and look at some details at least as I understand them:
1. The TSA was created after September 11th - during the Bush Administration;
2. The Terrorist Database, Watch List and No Fly List were all part of the September 11th response - during the Bush Administration;
3. The boy boarded the plane in Amsterdam (NOT at an American airport where we have control over the security process), was screened and went through security in Amsterdam - they didn't use a full body scanner and the normal scans showed nothing; no dogs were used to sniff out anything odd because this was not part of the normal procedure - body scans over there are possible but were on that day voluntary (they are now going to be mandatory it appears at least for flights to the U.S.);
4. The CIA did not put him on the No Fly List but did add him to the database apparently there wasn't enough info in his father's concern to do more than that - the investigation that has been launched hopefully will clear that tidbit up (although I doubt it, the government is investigating the government and while I like this government better than the last government it IS still the government... did you get all that? good).
Given all of the above why is everyone (and by everyone I mean the Republicans in Congress and the media) yelling at President Obama?
Seems to me the "system" is not new, has been in place for a number of years now having come online during the previous administration. A system that everyone had been praising as being effective (remember all those terrorist plots that were stopped/caught that we never heard details about?) now all of sudden is a horrible failure of the Obama presidency.
Okay so Ms. Napolitano did put her foot in her mouth on the weekend talk shows by saying the system worked. But in effect she was right -- the system did work insofar as its design allowed it to given the info at hand. Should the boy's father have been taken more seriously? Probably. But if the CIA reacted strongly to everyone's suspicion, concern "bad feeling" the do-gooder civil rights people would be all over it in a heartbeat alleging discrimination etc. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Are full body scanners that can see stuff like the underwear bomb? Sure. But they cost about $100,000 each and you know the costs will end up in our airline ticket prices. Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, just be aware it'll cost you. Is the extended wait while going through security worth it? Sure. Just don't bitch about it when it happens to you.
The system isn't perfect. There will never be a perfect system when it is run by imperfect human beings. And the state of the system is not the current president's fault.
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