As people go I'm pretty hawkish. The best way to solve problems with terrorists, as far as I'm concerned, involves two, simple things: (1) finding them, and (2) killing them. It's been my experience that dead men never hurt anyone again, so turning living terrorists into dead men is the very best way to defeat those committed to terrorism. They want to go to Allah and paradise; I say we should do our very best to arrange the meetings.
Yet despite my hawkishness I'm also a political conservative with libertarian leanings; i.e., I believe that government is, at its best, a necessary evil. If we learn anything from history, it is that government screws up virtually everything it attempts to do. As such, government's legitimate domain of operations should be limited as much as possible, preferably confined only to those rare cases in which a single, central approach works better than the private sector. In other words, national defense is definitely a legitimate interest of government while hosts of social programs (e.g., Medicare, Social Security, Welfare, etc.) are clearly not.
What might surprise my readers, then, is that I'm opposed to a fair portion of the changes made since 9/11. The point of this essay is to explain why and give me an opportunity to vent my frustration at the idiocy that seems only to be growing.
Let's drop the politically correct (PC) garbage for a moment and be honest, shall we? The only rational way to investigate crimes, terrorist plots, etc., at least in the absence of infinite resources, is to focus one's efforts where they may be expected to be most effective. That's such an obvious, common-sense truth that one would think it beyond question, and yet it has been thrown completely out the window since 9/11.
The first time I flew after the attacks illustrates the point nicely. While I was at the John Wayne airport waiting to board my flight, the security people were taking a few folk aside and checking their baggage thoroughly. I was seated, writing in my laptop journal, while a man clearly of middle-eastern descent paced nervously back and forth in front of me. He was wearing some kind of wrapping around his head and chattering in a clearly agitated fashion in some language unknown to me into his mobile phone, casting furtive glances at the security people from time to time. Yes, in case you're wondering, that struck me as pretty suspicious behavior compared to what the rest of us were doing.
So who did the security people search? Yes, you guessed it: the septuagenarian grandmother with a cross around her neck and a "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelet on her wrist. Honest, folks, I am not making this up. She blushed as they withdrew a Bible from her carry-on and started going through her unmentionables. She was searched, her husband was searched, and a young man on the other side of the room was also searched. All three of the persons searched were white, the grandmother and her husband clearly Christian (at least in the nominal sense) given their accoutrements. The suspicious, middle-eastern fellow wasn't given even a cursory examination, despite his odd behavior and clear state of agitation.
No doubt there are some out there who will applaud this as a clear lack of racial profiling. But let's ask ourselves a few, simple questions, shall we? How many of the terrorists of recent years have been elderly, white, Christian men and women? How many of the terrorists of recent years have been teenage, white boys wearing skate-punk regalia? The answer to both questions is a big, fat zero. Contrast that with the number of terrorists of recent years who have been middle-aged, middle-eastern men (i.e., virtually all of them) and the point is established beyond doubt: this was an absurdly stupid process.
If anyone should be getting searched and searched thoroughly, middle-aged, middle-eastern men should be at the front of the line. And to those who cry "racism!", let me respond by saying that that it has nothing to do with race. What's racist is to assume that all middle-aged, middle-eastern men are terrorists simply because they are middle-aged, middle-eastern men. But this isn't the relevant assumption; the relevant fact, not assumption, is that the empirical data is indisputably clear: virtually every terrorist in recent years has been a middle-aged, middle-eastern man. It is the height of absurdity and stupidity, therefore, to focus the bulk of one's efforts on everyone but those persons.
The bulk of the effort to root out terrorists should be directed against middle-aged, middle-eastern men. The simple justification being that the bulk of terrorists are middle-aged, middle-eastern men. That's neither offensive nor is it racist; it is intelligent and wise. It is the height of absurdism to focus one's precious anti-terrorism resources on helping the public avoid pointless, liberal guilt by searching grandmothers, but, of course, that's what we're doing.
Years ago I worked as a security guard. During my time on the job I had to deal with a number of different issues, but the most common of the two were surely (1) drunks in the hotel bar, and (2) shoplifters at the stores in the connected mall. Almost without exception, every drunk I threw out of the hotel bar was a middle-aged, white man. Almost without exception, every shoplifter I picked up in the connected mall was a black teenager.
Do I have an explanation for these facts? You bet I do: middle-aged, white men are more often troublesome drunks, while black teenagers are more often shoplifters. Why is that the case? Ask some sociologist; I don't know. What I do know is this: it would have been idiotic of me to expend the bulk of my efforts worrying about black teens getting abusive in the bar or middle-aged, white men shoplifting. Call me a racist if it makes you feel better, but the facts are all that matter.
President Bush, some would say to his credit, has been extremely careful to distinguish radical Muslims, whom I'll refer to as Islamofascists going forward, from what he takes to be the far larger, Muslim community. The Islamofascists, we are told, are trying to "hijack" Islam, wresting it away from its roots as a religion of peace, love, and tolerance. One certainly must give President Bush this much credit: his position has been articulated consistently and with no small attention to nuance, which shows, if nothing else, that the President isn't the ignorant boob his enemies typically accuse him of being.
There's only one problem with this approach: it's a steaming load of crap. For sake of illustration, let's contrast Christianity with Islam for a moment. Jesus preached an ethic of peace, love, and tolerance, suggesting that one love one's neighbor as one's self, turn the other cheek to one's enemies, etc. And when confronted with those who didn't accept him for what he claimed to be, he made no effort to avoid being put to death by them. Whether or not Jesus truly was God incarnate as he claimed to be is irrelevant to the current discussion; what does matter is that his life and his teachings both were clearly in favor of peace, love, and tolerance.
"But what about the crusades?!?!" comes the shrill reply. "Bin Laden and the other 'terrorists' are only doing what they have to do after centuries of oppression!!! It's completely understandable that they might take up arms as their Christian oppressors did during the crusades!!!" shrieks the leftist apologist and general nut-case. Yes, indeed, what about the crusades? The crusades are pretty illustrative, folks, though not for the reasons the ignorant suggest.
The simple truth of the matter is that the crusades were a response. What all those people who call Islam a religion of peace, love, and tolerance seem to forget are the actions of its founder, Mohammed. Mohammed and his followers conquered all of the surrounding nations in pretty short order, taking as slaves (second-class "citizens" known as dhimmi) all those who agreed to convert and putting all other "infidels" to the sword. Period. Jesus led no army. Jesus advocated no conquest. Jesus preached peace, love, and tolerance; Mohammed led an Arab uprising and conquered the surrounding nations. It was only at the battle of Poitiers (TODO: fact check) that the Muslim aggressors were stopped, and it was only thereafter that the crusades to liberate the taken lands were initiated.
No matter how Islamic scholars try to spin the Koran, no matter how many persons who today call themselves Muslims and distance themselves from the Islamofascists, the facts of history do not support their view. The very founder of Islam thought it the best thing to do to conquer the surrounding nations, unite them under his leadership, and slaughter those who got in his way. One has to ask: if Mohammed himself, supposedly Allah's last and greatest prophet, clearly saw war and conquest of non-Muslims as the proper course of action, how is it even vaguely reasonable for contemporary Imams to suggest that they, not the founder of the religion and Allah's greatest prophet, know better?
Obviously it's not. To anyone who knows its history, Islam is clearly not a religion of peace, love, and tolerance. At its best it can lead to relatively tolerable yet theocratic rule; for its worst sins one need only look to Iran or other such nations. Let's stop pretending that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, shall we? Let's stop turning off our minds for the sake of being PC and recognize that, at bottom, this is a conflict between a religion that sees its rightful place as ruling those who will convert and killing those who won't.
For those who think I'm blowing smoke just ask yourselves this: how many Muslims and Muslim organizations have come forward with strong, unequivocal denunciations of terrorism? How many have dedicated relief efforts to the victims of 9/11? Whenever a stupid Christian says something ridiculous—roughly half of what comes out of Jerry Falwel's mouth probably qualifies as such—the rest of the Christian community can't denounce him quickly enough. But when a bunch of Islamofascists crash airplanes into the twin towers, killing 3000+ U.S. citizens, the response from the Muslim world is either (1) jubilation, (2) drivel about how the attacks were entirely justified in light of U.S. foreign policy, or (3) complete silence.
If Islam were truly a religion of peace, love, and tolerance, one would expect at least a strong, unequivocal denunciation. One might reasonably expect Muslim agencies to direct relief operations at the families of those killed in 9/11, and especially to the far more numerous families in Israel who have suffered at the hands of Palestinian Islamofascists. I'm sure I'll receive all kinds of hate mail for this, and, ironically enough, any calls for my death by Islamofascist nuts (as happens for pretty much anyone who dares impugn Islam) will only serve to make my point all the more.
The absurdity of so much of the American response to 9/11 really didn't hit home with me, however, until I went to Disneyland. On a pretty Saturday earlier this year I went to Disneyland with my wife, planning to meet another friend for one last day of fun before our annual passes expired. To save money, and because we were all three on a special diet, my wife packed us a lunch to bring into the park. While searching our cooler, the lady at the security checkpoint asked how my wife intended to spread the cream cheese she saw.
In response, my wife reached to the bottom of the cooler and pulled out... A BUTTER KNIFE!!! Yes, that's right, she pulled out that feared foe of men throughout history, the very weapon before which the Greek Phalanx, Roman Centurion, and even today's U.S. Marines cower in helpless fear: A BUTTER KNIFE!!! Seriously, we were told that we couldn't bring it into the park. Our only choices were to give it up for confiscation or take it back to our car. I can't even describe how stunned I was at the whole thing. I had no idea that we'd hit such a low point in terms of our national IQ, but there it was: stupidity run rampant.
So, being neither the most tactful nor the most PC person you'll ever meet, I asked the question that came foremost to my mind. I said that their policy was utterly ridiculous, explaining that were I a terrorist I could easily snap the woman's neck in an instant, the point being that any able-bodied man doesn't need a butter knife to be dangerous. Perhaps my reader sees where this is going. I didn't. You see, I'm a grammar Nazi; I deliberately used the subjunctive mood in my sentence because I didn't want it to be construed as a threat. That's why I said were I a terrorist. That's why I kept my voice perfectly level and maintained an entirely non-threatening posture. Such distinctions were apparently lost on the lady at the desk.
I say that because she stupidly, though perhaps predictably had I not been giving her too much credit, took it as a threat and called for security. At this point I was simultaneously pissed off and amused. I was pissed off because I despise pointless and idiotic policies that accomplish nothing save screwing legitimate customers. Yet I was also amused because the "security guard" that came a to help was barely five feet tall, overweight to the point of waddling not walking, and a woman to boot. So here I was standing in front of two women, neither of whom had a prayer of surviving a hundred-yard dash much less handling me, both of whom were now getting in my face about my "threatening" a Disneyland employee. Were I honestly being threatening, they would have had about as much chance of containing me as, say, tissue paper.
Because I retained enough presence of mind to see this was going nowhere fast, I brought the whole thing to a close by saying we'd take the knife back to our car and then walking away. "I don't appreciate being threatened!" came the parting comment aimed at my back, while the "security guard" continued to raise the police or whomever else she was calling on her radio. "And I don't appreciate rampant stupidity!" was the only rejoinder I could offer and remain within the bounds of good taste.
We walked our tiny weapon of mass creamy-spread destruction back to the car, returned to a different security checkpoint, and got into the park without any problem. In fact, the second security station didn't even ask about the cream cheese. The rest of our day passed without incident, and the whole thing just kept getting funnier and funnier to me as I thought about it. But there are deeper matters at stake here, none of which are funny, and that's why the whole thing prompted me to write this essay.
To come right to the point, the incident at Disneyland indicates the very worst sort of post-9/11 stupidity, namely, accomplishing nothing useful while simultaneously decreasing quality of life. The point I tried to convey to the ladies at Disneyland was that I don't need a weapon to be dangerous, but far worse is the stupidity of the policies themselves. The stupidity is dangerous for two reasons as I'll explain.
First, the security screening accomplishes nothing useful . Disneyland searches only external bags, packages, etc. They do not search one's pockets or one's person. I could have simply put the knife in my pocket and made it through security without any problem. In fact, I thought of doing that to save time, but I figured it would be easier to elude whatever additional security might be on the way if I went back to the car. In short, a person of evil intent can bring anything he wants into Disneyland.
Were I a terrorist, again note the subjunctive for I am not a terrorist, I would simply bring my explosives and weapons into the park inside a coat, pockets, the legs of my pants, etc. Heck, with as shabby as the security at Disneyland seems, I'd bet that a homicide bomber could simply walk right through the checkpoints, through the gate, trot up to the Magic Kingdom and blow himself and any nearby patrons to bits.
Alternately, since the guards don't examine MP3 players, laptop computers, etc., one could simply bring weapons and/or explosives inside them. The final stupidity, I suppose, is that one can easily obtain metal butter knives at various restaurants within the park anyway, so preventing guests from bringing them in is simply nuts. It's not like they post guards outside the restaurants; it would be trivial to walk off with knives.
Second, although the policies in question accomplish nothing useful they may manage to accomplish two undesirable things: (1) they inconvenience legitimate customers, and (2) give the false impression of better security. That they result in (1) is unquestionable, I think, but the case isn't nearly so clear for (2). After all, the security is so pointless that any person with half a wit, who sits and thinks about the matter for but a few moments, should be able to recognize just how useless the security policies are.
Assuming for a moment, however, that such useless policies really do give some people a more enhanced feeling of security, than this is all the worse insofar as it blinds them to reality. A false sense of security, much like the one so many in America enjoyed before 9/11, is arguably quite worse than feeling and being vulnerable. At least those who feel vulnerable are vigilant.
So what can Disney possibly be thinking? Their executives cannot really be so stupid as to believe that their changes in policy accomplish anything useful, can they? I can't imagine how anyone dumb enough to believe that could rise to a position of leadership in any serious organization. But if that's not it, then the only other alternative is that they know their policies are useless and intrusive yet adopt them anyway for some heretofore unstated benefit. All I can figure is that Disney doesn't care about being secure but does care about appearing secure. If correct, that's reprehensible.
So where does all this lead? Well, I'm grateful for the Patriot Act. Those strident voices who claim that it "shreds the constitution" are either (1) nuts, or (2) unfamiliar with either the constitution or the Patriot Act. I've read both and am not concerned. Its biggest strength is that it finally allows government agencies to share intelligence information, something which probably wouldn't have stopped 9/11 by itself but has surely foiled other attacks since then. Am I grateful for Patriot II? I can't say; I haven't read a final version of it yet. I guess we'll all have to wait and see.
What I don't appreciate is what I take to be the bulk of the new focus on security, namely, on being politically correct and giving the appearance of doing things without actually doing anything useful. Every time airport security shakes down some elderly, white grandmother, they're doing so at the cost of screening some middle-aged, middle-eastern man instead. Every time private organizations hassle their guests in absurd ways it only helps raise the level of consciousness of such annoyances and, thus, is self-defeating to a degree. And should fake security be too much of a bother, the real thing surely won't be sought instead.
In short, I think we're in a serious pickle. Politicians, by and large, don't have the political will to do the right thing; i.e., to find the bad guys and kill them as quickly and efficiently as possible. The citizenry has a bit more gumption, here and there, but the majority's voice is all-too-often drowned out by activists and activist courts—you know, the goofballs who think enemy combatants captured in a foreign land somehow deserve Miranda rights and every other protection due to U.S. citizens.
Worse, I have no clear answers to offer. Oh, don't get me wrong: I wouldn't hesitate for even a second to suggest that we simply track and kill as many Islamofascists as possible. The best thing that could happen to Al Qaeda is the same best thing that could happen to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc., namely, that their members all be removed from this world without being replaced by others. But politics isn't my strong suit. How does one unite a country with a non-trivial population of leftist idiots? I don't know, but I hope President Bush and others have some ideas, for I'd hate to see another 9/11; yet I fear that's exactly where post-9/11 stupidity will lead eventually if left unchecked.
04/25/2004