Daniel Greenfield article:Breaking the Siege Mentality of Airline Security |
| Breaking the Siege Mentality of Airline Security Posted: 14 Nov 2010 07:56 PM PST The debate over the TSA security measures comes down to two options. Either subject everyone to strip searches or accept the possibility of being blown out of the sky. The authoritarians champion the first option and the libertarians champion the second option. But there is another way. A third option.  There is a very simple reason why we need airline security. Because we have Muslims living in the United States, and traveling to the United States. Unlike the old leftist terrorists, Muslim terrorists like to kill everyone on board and use the planes as weapons too. That makes the consequences of allowing them to succeed completely unacceptable. But we have spent so much time talking about the consequences, that we refuse to admit what the problem is. Israel's national airline, El Al (Skyward), was a popular target for terrorists. But the common sense approach there is to profile suspected terrorists. That's something we refuse to do in America. Because the authorities refuse to admit that there's any specific group that engages in terrorism. Instead we treat everyone like terrorists. And that leads to ugly abuses of authority and a general feeling of helplessness. It is also means that airline security ends up being spread too thin and becomes useless. Last month, Juan Williams was fired for even mentioning that he was nervous around flying Imams. Passengers and airlines who profile are sued and denounced as racists. Officially we're worried about terrorists, but they have no profile. Which means every passenger has to be treated like they're headed for Gitmo. And in order to avoid hurting the feelings of that 1 percent of moderate Muslims, we have to demean and intimidate everyone else. Profiling alone is no solution. It's just a more sophisticated defensive tactic. And that still means living with a siege mentality. The psychological consequences of living that way carry their own toll. As is the case in Israel. It leads to anger, frustration, weariness and self-hatred. Cage up enough animals in a box, and they will begin chewing on each other. People are different, but not that different. In a siege, there are acts of great heroism, but also acts of cowardice and treachery. And when the siege seems endless, where there is no end in sight-- then morale drops sharply. America is caught in a War of Terror with no end in sight. Because we won't admit who the enemy is. Instead we engage in appeasement. We keep reaching out to all the world's Muslims, hoping to convince them to stop trying to kill us. We humiliate our own citizens. We learn to be afraid of our aircraft. Boarding a plane becomes a suicide pact, as we accept that the air force will shoot us down, if we are hijacked. And as time goes on, it will only get worse. We have still not even begun to learn the real meaning of terror.  And that's the third option. It's the option where we turn the tables on them. Right now, Muslims can infiltrate America and plan and carry out attacks. Mostly those attacks will fail, but some will succeed. It doesn't have to be very many. Terrorists operate in small groups. They can fail a dozen times, without losing more than two dozen people. But when they succeed once, they will kill hundreds of us. And they only have to get lucky once. Only one of their half-assed and poorly thought out plans has to succeed. Because as comical as the Times Square Bomber or the Underwear Bomber may look as failures, if they had succeeded in killing hundreds or thousands, then there wouldn't be laughter, there would be tears. Under our current system, all we can do is wait. Gather intel, tighten security, send out alerts... and wait. Wait for another attack. But we're not on the defensive because we have to be. We're on the defensive because we choose to be. We stand around getting shot at, and insist that it must be raining. We have a gator chomping on our leg, and we blame muscle aches. We have Muslims trying to kill us, and we insist that it's religiously undifferentiated extremists. Like Glenn Beck. After 9/11, our goal was to kill terrorists. We went on the offensive and we actually succeeded. Not just in killing terrorists, that's not hard to do, but in frightening them. In terrorizing them. And then we decided to turn their countries into humanitarian projects, rebuild them, provide free electricity, dig their wells and protect them. And not only did we get played for suckers, but the terrorists rebounded. They were back in their element, trying to bring down a regime and terrorize the occupation forces. And we were on the defensive. And we're still on the defensive. We could end 99 percent of the threat of terror by shutting down every mosque and deporting every first and second generation Muslim immigrant from this country. And every convert. But of course we can't do that. That would be "Un-American". On the other hand TSA agents groping female air travelers, now that's properly "American". In the same way, we could save the lives of our troops, by dropping all the "Hearts and Minds" nonsense, and focusing on wiping out terrorists and anyone who collaborates with them. Not to mention take back the American oil fields that the Saudis nationalized, and turn off the money tap for Al Qaeda. But that too would be "Un-American". But burying fallen soldiers every week, who aren't allowed to defend themselves under the "Hearts and Minds" Rules of Engagement, that is just very "American". Isn't it?  That's life under siege. And the only way to change that is to break out of the siege. We are under siege by Islam. By Muslims, inside and outside our country. The goal of their siege is to wear us down and beat us down to the point where we'll give them anything they ask for, so we can just have some peace. To the point where we'll give up our freedoms, our religion and our country-- and accept slavery, just to bring the terror to an end. The Third Option is breaking the siege mentality. And breaking out of the siege. Muslim terror hopes to contain us, isolate us and then move in, and take over. But the effectiveness of their siege depends on our unwillingness to name names, to call them out for what they are doing, and deprive them of their ability to wage war on us. That is how we break the siege. That is how we break them.  |
When you have TSA screeners shamelessly telling passengers they’re going to conduct a groin check, When you have TSA screeners accosting 3 year-old girls, when you have Catholic nuns being felt up…
You know the system is broken.
Now, the Transportation Security Administration warning that any passenger who denies TSA agents from patting down, doing in groin checks or who refuses full body scanners could be subject to civil penalties.
CNN reported:
In response to a video of a California man’s dispute with airport security officials, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday it tries to be sensitive to individuals, but everyone getting on a flight must be screened.
The video, in which software engineer John Tyner refuses an X-ray scan at the San Diego, California, airport, has sparked a debate over screening procedures…
…Tyner said that after he declined the body scan, a TSA agent told him he could have a pat-down instead. Once the procedure was described, Tyner said he responded, “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.”
The dispute that followed, Tyner said, included police escorting him from the screening area and a supervisor saying he could be faced with a civil lawsuit for leaving the airport before security had finished screening him.
“The whole thing just seemed ridiculous… I don’t intend to fly until these machines go away,” he said.
“Advanced imaging technology screening is optional for all passengers,” TSA said in a statement released Monday. “Passengers who opt out of [advanced imaging] screening will receive alternative screening, including a physical pat-down.”
But anyone who refuses to complete the screening process will be denied access to airport secure areas and could be subject to civil penalties, the administration said, citing a federal appeals court ruling in support of the rule.
When Obama said Americans were “the enemy” he wasn’t kidding.
There are plenty of reasons to oppose naked body scanners and the recent groping incidents, but this response to them from Hamas-linked CAIR exposes its Islamic supremacist agenda like nothing else does. The scanners, and the whole TSA security apparatus, exists in the first place because of Islamic jihad terrorists, and now CAIR is demanding an exemption from such scanning for the very group from which comes the subgroup that made it necessary. In CAIR's world, the one group that would be subjected to lighter airport security checks than any other group would be...Muslims. And that would in turn make things easier than ever for jihad terrorists. Surely that can't be CAIR's objective, now, can it?
Obviously, as I have pointed out many times, the TSA's security measures will never be adequate to stop the Islamic jihadists. The TSA is always prohibiting or restricting or searching things pertaining to the method of the previous jihad attack attempt -- shoes, liquids, etc. -- but they have no way to anticipate or head off the method of the next attack. And they waste huge amounts of time, money, and resources by pretending that everyone is an equal threat to launch a terror attack -- Baptist grandmothers in wheelchairs just as much as young Pakistani Muslim males. The only answer at this point, and even it is not perfect, would be to institute Israeli-style profiling of air passengers. The Israelis have run an efficient and terror-attack-free air service for years, without all these invasive security measures.
But to emulate them, of course, would mean to recognize in an official way that Muslims are a greater risk to commit terror attacks than Methodists or Mennonites. And in today's politically correct environment, the Obama Administration and the TSA would rather see another jihad mass-murder of American citizens on the scale of 9/11 or worse than do anything to suggest that.
"CAIR: TSA Can Only Pat Down Muslim Women's Head, Neck," by Meredith Jessup for The Blaze, November 12 (thanks to all who sent this in):
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued a travel notice to Muslim airline passengers, warning them that new regulations from the Transportation Security Administration violate certain religious rules.According to CAIR, the TSA's new "enhanced pat down" policy should be limited to searching only around Muslim women's head and neck if they are wearing a hijab and that Muslims objecting to the enhanced full-body scans have the right to request the pat-down procedure be done in a private place.
From CAIR's press release:
Special recommendations for Muslim women who wear hijab:
* If you are selected for secondary screening after you go through the metal detector and it does not go off, and "sss" is not written on your boarding pass, ask the TSA officer if the reason you are being selected is because of your head scarf.
* In this situation, you may be asked to submit to a pat-down or to go through a full body scanner. If you are selected for the scanner, you may ask to go through a pat-down instead.
* Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.
* You may ask to be taken to a private room for the pat-down procedure.
* Instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down your own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.In February, the Figh [sic] Council of North America, a group of Islamic scholars, issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, that full-body scanners violate Islamic law.
"It is a violation of clear Islamic teaching that men or women be seen naked by other men and women," the ruling states. "Islam highly emphasizes haya (modesty) and considers it part of the faith. The Qu'ran [sic] has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts."
According to the Detroit Free Press, CAIR endorsed the fatwa.
If any passenger refuses the full-body scan, new regulations call for new, enhanced "head to toe" pat down procedures. "Pat downs are one important tool to help TSA detect hidden and dangerous items such as explosives," a TSA statement issued on Oct. 28 stated. "Passengers should continue to expect an unpredictable mix of security layers that include explosives trace detection, advanced imaging technology, canine teams, among others."...
CAIR said Muslims who object to full-body scans for religious reasons should know their rights if they are required to undergo a pat-down, including asking for the procedure to be done in a private place. In addition, CAIR offered a “special recommendation” for Muslim women who wear a hijab, telling them they should tell the TSA officer that they may be searched only around the head and neck.Someone let me know the first time a Muslim is denied boarding of a flight in the US for declining the 'enhanced security measures.' The problem with flying out of Israel is that you have to fly back. This is unbelievable.
In the “special recommendations for Muslim women who wear hijab,” it states: “Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.”
It also states: “Instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down your own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.”
(CNSNews.com) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued a travel warning to Muslim airline passengers on U.S. aircraft in response to the Transportation Safety Administration’s "enhanced pat down" policy that went into effect in late October.
CAIR said Muslims who object to full-body scans for religious reasons should know their rights if they are required to undergo a pat-down, including asking for the procedure to be done in a private place. In addition, CAIR offered a “special recommendation” for Muslim women who wear a hijab, telling them they should tell the TSA officer that they may be searched only around the head and neck.
In the “special recommendations for Muslim women who wear hijab,” it states: “Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.”
It also states: “Instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down your own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.”
The new TSA pat-downs involving “head-to-toe” screening techniques follow recent airliner bombing attempts. Passengers who reject a full-body scan or who are selected for secondary screening may be searched using the enhanced pat-down.
“Pat downs are one important tool to help TSA detect hidden and dangerous items such as explosives,” a TSA statement issued on Oct. 28 stated. “Passengers should continue to expect an unpredictable mix of security layers that include explosives trace detection, advanced imaging technology, canine teams, among others.”
Posted on its Web site under “TSA’s Head-to-Toe Screening Policies,” the agency said how people are dressed may lead to closer inspection, including baggy or loose clothing. Those policies also include individuals being searched by a “professional” of the same sex.
“It is TSA's policy that passengers should be screened by an officer of the same gender in a professional, respectful manner,” the policy reads.
In February, the Figh Council of North America, a group of Islamic scholars, issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, that full-body scanners violate Islamic law.
“It is a violation of clear Islamic teaching that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,” the ruling states. “Islam highly emphasizes haya (modesty) and considers it part of the faith. The Qu’ran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.”
CAIR endorsed the fatwa, according to a Feb. 21 article in the Detroit Free Press.
CAIR's press release on the TSA screening issue was first reported on by the Web site Black&Right.
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