Politically correct policies misallocate scarce resources. Passengers waste hundreds of millions of hours in airport security measures, and hundreds of thousands of airline employees spend comparable time on security-related routines. That time translates into tens of billions dollars of lost GDP worldwide annually. Security degenerates into absurdity, such as prohibiting toothpaste and nail clippers in carry-on luggage or requiring passengers to show a doctor’s prescription for their drugs. As if the terrorists would have any problem faking a prescription.
Passive security does not work. Unlike the fortresses of the old, airports are too large to be guarded efficiently. Terrorists can strike in terminals, check transit luggage in low-security airports, or shoot missiles through flimsy walls at planes idling at the outskirts of airports. Airport terrorism cannot be prevented unless we call a spade a spade.
“Terrorism” is a meaningless overgeneralization. In airports, there is Muslim, specifically Arab terrorism. Blond guys named Andy do not blow up planes. Jews, Christians, and blacks do not bring explosives aboard (an Arab’s Swedish girlfriend once did). The problem is the Arabs in our cities, not terrorism in our airports.
Africans are dirt poor, are living through the breakdown of paternalistic societies and traditional values, are exposed to the outside culture, and have long been humiliated by white people. Yet Africans do not blow our airplanes up. Arab Muslims do.
People across nations and cultures are not equal in any sense other than the vaguest biological commonalty, and even that is doubtful, given the Africans’ dominance in sports. The lines of difference are imperceptible: Germans, but not Italians, and Russians, but not Bulgarians, actively killed Jews. Christians and Muslims, Americans and Arabs are too different to be treated similarly in security matters.
Recognizing the source, let us confront the problem. The sources of Arab terrorism are Islam, immigration, and money.
The West must close its borders to Arabs: they have no business in Western cities. Instead the United States and Europe apply much easier visa standards to Arabs than to politically neutral people from Eastern Europe or Asia. A travel visa is not a human right but a benefit countries bestows at will. Americans and Europeans are under no moral obligation to issue visas to Arabs. Quarantine them. If some Arabs who do not support terrorism suffer from visa restrictions, so be it. Let them deal with their neighbors and co-religionists and extirpate the threat to the West which emanates from the Arab world. Some Germans were undoubtedly offended by restrictions on travel to America during WWII.
The Allies fought Germans, not Nazis; Japanese, not Asian imperialists; the West confronted Russians, not the Soviet people.
Abandon political correctness. Specify and target your enemy. Make yourself say the A-word: Arab. Then the necessary measures become clear.
You're absolutely correct on this matter but the problem is that the political correctness/human rights doctrine is the secular 'faith' of Western culture.Therefore anyone who expresses contrary opinions to this doctrine is immediately cast aside as a heretic (or racist, or fascist) and therefore effectively silenced.If Western societies continue to suffer more terrorism (because they're afraid to tackle the problem), and continue to appease a vociferous minority in their midst, then they will be responsible for their own downfall.
Momentarily is the world ruled by the "prince of this world". The great plan, of the Most High, is precisely after prophecy unfolding. His kingdom of heavens is not for everyone. To profit of the situation, live after the spirit of the Torah law, love the G*d of Israel. Then one will not be deceived or even listen to soothsayers, lairs and those who don't love their neighbors.
Political correctness is a dumb thing - true. Yet in the case of airport security just tracking suspicious Arabs won't help. Islamist terrorism is too diverse. There are South East Asian groups (many of them are more powerful and sophisticated than Palestinian squirrels), Pakistani groups, African groups (remember the plane Algerians wanted to fly into the Eiffel Tower?) and various converts who are either Caucasian or Jewish. Beards and burqas are not at all dominant.Finally, some terrorist groups may, by Hitchcock's terminology, "swap murders". One or the worst attacks in Israel, massacre in Ben Gurion Airport in 1972, is a good example (the guards specifically followed instructions similar to the ones you propose), as well as "outsourcing" a sniper from (seemingly) IRA a few years ago. If the West closes its borders to Arabs, it means switching to steam-powered cars, trains and horse drawn carriages… Not to mention that sufficient cannon fodder is already there.
Just a small one - Shana Tova to you and your family!
To Gal: "If the West closes its borders to Arabs, it means switching to steam-powered cars, trains and horse drawn carriages…"You mean, for the Arabs? Or do you mean Arab oil? Buy oil without giving them visas, or better still buy oil from Russia.No measure is a panacea, but there would be less terror threat in the West closed to Muslim visitors.Shana tova u-metukah
So if the airports have Arab terrorism then the cities have European terrorism by that reasoning? More specifically Irish/British/Spanish terrorism. Too may people forget that other countries in the world have been fighting terrorism for 30-40 years longer than America.
To Pilky: There is no single solution to all the problems. Airplane bombings are predominantly perpetrated by Muslims.Irish and Spanish terrorism is local; they fight for limited political objectives. Muslim terrorists fight against the West generally.You're right, the US must consider the European experience of fighting terrorists, especially the harsh methods employed against the terrorists and their supporters.
I'd say the best way to prevent terrorism is to stop giving them fodder. When we go and attack them then go and reduce the number of civilian casualties, otherwise you'll turn people against us and they're more likely to work with the terrorists. For example, the IRA bombed somewhere in the UK, so part of the UK army went and say, opened fire on a stadium full of civilians. Then the IRA bombed somewhere in the UK and so on.Much of the problem with terrorism is that western countries give people reasons to support it by killing innocent civilians (many, many more than the terrorists themselves have killed)
The problem with employing arguments like "we're giving them excuses" is that no matter what we do or don't do, they're going to attack us. I've never heard one of these koranimals says that, if we don't kill any civilions, they'll leave us alone. No, it's either convert or die. Sorry, but I'm interested in staying Jewish, not being assimilated by the Islamoborg.