Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] airport security

["Jim Locke" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Since 9/11, I am quite sure that at least once (probably twice), I accidentally left my Swiss Army knife in the side pocket of the bag I used to carry around.
This was an implicit message to me that the security is/was just for show without a real backbone, and/or they are simply racially profiling.

On 9/19/07, Vern Green <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:

Hindsite is 20/20 we can all agree about that. We can say woulda, shoulda, coulda about a great many things in history. I can only hope we have all learned from our mistakes.

 

I do not disagree with you on anything you have stated above, however, I am not sure whether Bush could have even sold an attack on Afghanistan before the attacks if he had followed Clarke's recommendations, and really it doesn't matter, Bush never seems to care about selling what he thinks is right. The problem I have now is to his decision making process on determining what is right.

 

Back to the original topic though, the state of airport security today is directly related to the chance that someone might try to copy what happened on September 11th. What worries me more now is not whether someone will sneak an explosive on an airplane, or hijack an airplane and fly it into a building again. It is pretty clear that it will be much harder to pull that kind of attack off again. No the bigger issue now is what form the next attack will come in and what are we doing to head off that attack?

 

On 9/19/07, Jonathan King < EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:

On 9/19/07, Vern Green < EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> Thanks for the reply, these are all good points that are supported by the
> facts. So Bush's administration is clearly guilty about knowing about the
> attacks.

I didn't say that. I said that the strong possibility of attacks was
known, and it was a consciously chosen policy to focus on other
things.

>Now what should he had done had he known?
>

Clarke suggested taking out Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, if I recall correctly.

> Unless I am unaware of anything, Clarke's warning was general in nature.

They were general in terms of future attacks, but Clarke's plans for
trashing Al Qaeda were pretty concrete.

The real point here is that counter-terrorism was not very high on
Bush's list. So not-very-high that it took Clarke weeks-to-months to
arrange a principals-only meeting on the issue. It is definitely
possible that even with a rather higher priority that September 11th
would have still happened. None of this, however, argues against what
the administration *might* have done about the stituation: they could
have made counter-terrorism a higher priority, which is what the
outgoing Clinton administration strongly suggested that they do.
Clearly, you don't have to (and probably shouldn't) take every piece
of advice you get, but the current administration pretty much takes
nobody's advice, and I would argue that this can't be right, either.

Jon King

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Thanks
F Vernon Green
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- Jim Locke.
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