It's been 28 months since 9-11 and there still hasn't been another al-Qaeda attack in this country — yet. For this I'm grateful but astonished. Perhaps the Bush administration has protected us after all. We'll never know.
America's borders are long and unprotected, porous as tissue; our airspace is wild and blue and tempting with targets, our airports are spangled with security, but it all means nothing since a credit card torn in half can slit a throat as efficiently as a knife.
Big deal, in a way. I have every confidence that any random planeload of people is today loaded with heroes who would willingly and immediately stand and fight. It happened over Pennsylvania on 9/11 and it's happened on every problem flight since. Sometimes this is helpful, othertimes not, such as that unruly drunk who was squashed to death by a well-meaning group of fellow passengers. Whoopsie.
It has occurred to me several times that probably the best time to attack a country is when its military is on the other side of the world.
I've often wondered whether the president's obsession with Iraq was coming at the expense of national security, of homeland security, social security and job security besides his own. Because these issues really need attention.
I don't feel safe. I never really did. Those are my issues, and I own them. The rest of you I can't speak for. Now, after leafing through a pile of Richard Clarke's Polaroids, I don't trust these people anymore, not that I ever did, especially since their bar-the-door Nixonian response. Separation of powers they scream.
Jesus! People died in this horrible event. It was our nightmare, our shared terror, that thing in the closet that took away our certainty of the way things would be; al Qaeda was the enemy and even worse still is, but the terror is in the fact that our country has been hijacked by a malign cabal of Reaganite extremists who have purchased their power by sharing what's not theirs to give with people who can install anything. The American people have become these people's installers.
Article comments
1 - Ms. Tek
And curious. Where's John Ashcroft? He's been completely out of the news since March 5 when he went into the hospital for gallstone pancreatitis.
1. With Dick Cheney, hiding?
2. He died. Now they are making an animatronic Ashcroft to fool the masses.
As for do I feel safer:
Have you SEEN the ghetto people they have hired at the airports? I have had one guy more worried about getting my phone number than checking my laptop. I'm licensed for security. In reality, that means fuck all... it just means that the State of Il and the FBI have run my prints and I am not a safety risk (who'd of thought!). I have had so many hours of training and I can carry a weapon when I work for an agency in the State of Illinois. So what? Safety is keeping your eyes and your ear open. Safety is also knowing that no matter what physical pain you may have to endure or possible death, you know that if you are called on to act, to get between the danger, you will do it. You will do whatever you can yourself to do it.
When I travel or am in public spaces, I have a good time by I have been trained to always keep my eyes on everything, and every person. I make a point to remember faces and positions in the room and what they are doing and who they are talking to. Its second nature to me now... people sometimes think I am being rude and am not listening or paying attention when the truth is that yes, I hear them but I am also just gathering in info. Paranoid? Maybe. But once again, if someone decides to do something funny, I have a bit of a heads up as to what actions I might be able to take.
Oh, and on the airplane itself, there a ton of things that can be used as weapons. I am not going to list them to give ideas. Lets just say you can take away a knife or a pair of tweezers, but you still have a lot of ways to hurt people if you really want to.
2 - Ms. Tek
Oh, and is it just me or do the TSA folks look like "rent-a-cops"?
No, I don't feel safe with them. Perhaps a better uniform might help??