Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted

There is no doubt in my mind that the issue of airport security is very contentious. There are many reasons for having proper security in place. However, there is also a need for a common sense approach to the whole matter.

I am not in the security business, and I have never been in the security business. My views are my own but they are also based upon experience. I have no problem with the implementation of security measures that are necessary. However, I do have a problem with keeping unnecessarily restrictive measures in place when these measures do nothing to enhance the traveling experience of the public.

Let me focus for a minute on why these measures were necessary in the first place. Islamic terrorism. Over the whole of my lifetime, the majority of the terrorist actions throughout the world have been performed by Islamic terrorists. Yes, I know about the IRA and I condemn them as well, but the traveling public did not have to fear the IRA plotting to blow up aircraft or to take hostages, or to push disabled passengers off the deck of a ship. Yes, there have been a few other exceptions over that period of more than 50 years. However, the overwhelming majority of these actions have been performed by Muslims – not Hindu, not Christians, not Jews, and definitely no Buddhists or even Atheists.

A turning point in how the world responds to these acts of terror took place when 19 Muslims hijacked several aircraft in USA air space, and then two of those aircraft were slammed into the World Trade Centre, plus another slammed into the Pentagon, and yet another was diverted and plunged into a field in Pennsylvania, thanks to the bravery of the men on board that flight. These 19 men had been living within the USA and were secretly preparing for their actions that day. Several of them took flying lessons from a school in Florida. On the day of September 11, 2001 they boarded their flights in readiness for their dastardly deed, which was the most horrific in living memory. These men were fanatic Muslims associated with Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.

To my mind, the events of September 11 were inevitable, not because of the reasons cited by those who are into blaming America, but because it had been obvious after the first attempt on the World Trade Centre that Muslims had declared war on the United States of America. Even if one wants to buy into the reasoning of : “they were angry because of the missionaries”, I think that there are good reasons to come to the conclusion that the actions were inevitable. A point to consider here is the weakness or strength of the sitting POTUS as perceived by other world leaders. Bill Clinton had acted with weakness in dealing with two events: (1) the OKC bombing on the Murrah building. The fact that the FBI failed to investigate John Doe #3 is reason enough to consider the USA as having a weak belly for “going there”.  (2) the failed bombing of the WTC was an invitation to try again.

Looking at those events though, I think that the system had failed because of the inability to detect the activities of the extremists who murdered close to 3000 people that day. There seems to have been a lack of surveillance of these foreign nationals, and in particular a lack of surveillance of the activities of the mosque that was headed by the Yemeni-American Anwar al Awlaki. Is it so surprising that several of these terrorists actually attended Awlaki’s mosque in Virginia? Is it a shock to learn that Nidal Hassan the Fort Hood mass murderer attended the same mosque under Anwar al Awlaki?

The response to the attack on September 11, 2001 was both appropriate and inappropriate. It was appropriate to ensure that people passed through a security checkpoint before boarding a flight. It is quite appropriate to check for things like guns and knives. However, the banning of knitting needles, nail clippers and a number of other items was quite inappropriate. Women who knit on their flights are not going to attack the pilots and force them to fly into buildings. Neither are they going to attack other passengers. Most people would not drag out their nail clippers on a flight anyway. Confiscating nail clippers and knitting needles is in my view totally absurd, and it will not stop any terrorist.

After the events of September 11, we have in fact seen an incredible rise in the number of terrorist acts around the world. All of them have been perpetrated by Muslims. Why is that? Well the answer actually lies within the mosque. On the Friday prayer day the imams stir up the people, sometimes whipping them up into a frenzied anger… and then they go on the rampage. Trying to keep these actions in perspective is of course very difficult, but let’s turn for a moment to the various events around the world that have caused a stunning loss of life:

• the railway bombings in Spain: death toll more than 100 people died. As a result of those bombings the Spanish government was defeated. The Spanish then pulled out of Afghanistan or was it Iraq. In other words Spain succumbed to the bully tactics of Islamic terrorists.
• Bali bombings: more than 200 people – indigenous Balinese (Hindu) and mostly Australian visitors were killed in these bombings (there were two separate bombings).
• London subway bombings, and one bombing on a bus. It was a co-ordinated attack. More than 100 died and were injured. Some folk were left with horrific injuries that day.

As you can see, there is a trend here: railways are very vulnerable to attack by the Muslims. 

At the same time there had been several plots that were thwarted or they outright failed including that of Richard Reid the shoe bomber, the Christmas Day underwear bomber, and the liquids plot. Now in the USA, security was beefed up after these failed plots were discovered. It is this response to the situation that I find to be ridiculous. My reason is that all of these plots were by people living in Europe or elsewhere at the time. Richard Reid boarded his flight in London. The Nigerian boarded his flight in Amsterdam. In fact there was a critical breakdown in security when it comes to how this man even got onto a flight to the USA.

The shoe bomber was caught and he is in prison, so why do innocent people have to take off their shoes to go through airport security in the USA? It is highly unlikely that there would be a repeat attempt because the shoe bomb was a failure anyway. In Australia we do not have to take off our shoes to go through security. To require people to take off their shoes is farcical. No lives have been saved by this measure. The horse had already bolted.

The liquid plot was one hatched by Pakistani Muslims living in the U.K. They were under surveillance and he plot was thwarted. We have gone through several years now of putting up with yet another silly restriction. No PETA has turned up in any liquid item taken on board a flight since then. None has been detected through security screening. The restriction should be lifted.

The latest outrage is that of the scanning machines. In Europe there are scanners that do the same job as the Rapiscan but without the invasiveness of showing the nude frame. The UK however has been using the same scanners, and I might add that airport security personnel have been irresponsible in their actions by printing out the nude image of an Indian actor. However, there is something that is more of an outrage than just the scanners. It is alleged that these scanners use a small dose of radiation that is not harmful, but this is debatable and many people do not believe that information. They are given a choice, either go through the scanner or have a very invasive pat-down.

The invasive pat-down procedure is truly outrageous. It involves a member of the TSA touching very intimate parts of a person’s body. If anyone refuses they are threatened with fines, and with being arrested. The TSA have deliberately ensured that people have missed their flights because they have refused to do as the TSA has requested. In truth most of these TSA procedures are simply not needed.

If the USA was carrying out proper surveillance procedures, concentrating on the group that is the most likely to hijack aircraft or blow up aircraft then most passengers could be left alone to go about their daily business. However, the current Regime has endorsed a politically correct attitude. This has meant that they have adopted the stance of “we don’t do profiling in the USA”.  Thus, ordinary citizens are singled out and humiliated in public by the TSA whilst the ones most likely – think the flying Imams – are allowed to sail through security without further checks. What is even more ridiculous is that the Administration wants to capitulate and waive the burqa wearing crowd having to go through a pat down – hello those burqas are capable of hiding a bomb belt!!!!!

The measures that have been implemented since September 11 are largely a waste of time and money. The TSA has not caught one potential terrorist. They have introduced regulations that causes massive inconvenience and hold-ups for travellers. They fail to assess the efficiency of such measures, with the intent of removing those that are no longer required. Instead they are being allowed to become more officious.

If there really was a known threat to the travelling public then the way to deal with it is to have a warning system, placing people on high alert and then beefing up security. Otherwise, people should be left alone and there should be an end to the random checks. It should be either check everyone or none at all, but the Muslims should not be granted immunity from such checks.

 

What kind of psychological problems for these children in the future?

A picture can paint a thousand words, and the pictures of these innocent babies paints a rather horrible story. From a very young age they are being taught to hate others. It is hard to imagine the kind of psychological problems that these children will have if they ever make it into adult hood. With the kind of hatred that is being built up within them, they are facing a very bleak future. This is what is so very rotten about the condition of the Islamist Jihadis in our society. How can any decent human being support this kind of brainwashing of the innocent? Dr. Sanity offers the following perspective

From a wider perspective, though, what Steyn is talking about is the politicization of children; i.e., the use of children to advance a political or ideological agenda. This sort of child abuse is going on on a number of levels, both in Western culture and in Middle Eastern culture. Specifically, I want to focus on the hyper-sexualization of children in the West, and the concomitant hyper-”aggressivization” of children in the Arab/Islamic world.

A recent search of the headlines will give us plenty to ponder on the sexualization being waged in the West. Consider this. And this. and this. In Norway: this Or how about this?

What does any of the above represent, except an all-out assault on the sexual identity and genitalia of today’s children. Oh, don’t bother to tell me this is all done with the best of intentions…quite frankly, I’m rather sick of hearing that particular line.
Don’t these do-gooders ever consider the long-term consequences of their actions? Or is it just enough for them to feel in the moment oh-so-good about what wonderful, modern, tolerant, progressive people they are? They will conveniently forget that it was their policies and their agenda when the sexual chickens come home to roost (imagine an entire society of Brittainys and Madonnas and their male equivalents).

Meanwhile their socialist counterparts in the Middle East really have perfected a way to accomplish what the Stark Raving Mad congressman from Maine insinuated (i.e., “President Bush wants to breed a generation of sickly uninsured children in order to send them to Iraq to stagger round the Sunni Triangle, weak and spindly and emaciated and rickets-stricken, to get their heads blown off)–with one little creative modification!

When they blow their little heads off, they will be dying to blow yours off, too. These jihadi kids don’t draw guns and play as a means of discharging youthful aggressive impulses on the road to civilized behavior; they shoot them for real, at real human targets and are rewarded according to how much they are able to express the uncivilized cultural hatred that motivates the adults in their society. Instead of learning civilized behavior, they learn to project their hatred onto Jews and Christians. This is a violent video “game” in real life.

Do you imagine there is not a difference between fantasy play (which teaches a child how to control impulses and tame his or her inner monsters in the safety of fantasy) and participating in real-life violence, brutality or sex (which gives tacit permission and actively encourages the child to become his or her inner monsters) ?

If you are unable to distinguish the difference, then you must be a member of the so-called “reality-based” community who seem to specialize in utopian fantasies where human aggression has been magically eliminated from the species, and we all “make love, not war” in some utopian meadow of the not-too-distant future.
Good luck with that.

Instead of channeling human aggression and sexuality into societally productive avenues that benefit both individuals and cultures in which they live, we are witness to the spectacle of the political left gleefully encouraging and supporting dysfunctional sexuality that reeks of entitlement, irresponsibility, and perversity. Their moral counterparts in the “religion of peace”, channel it directly into hatred and religious fanatacism.

Frequent visitors to this blog might recall that I have written quite a bit about psychological defense mechanisms (and here, for example) which operate unconsciously for the most part; and that they exist in a spectrum from immature to mature. On the immature end we have psychotic denial and ordinary denial (which children engage in frequently). As they mature, ordinary denial will morph into psychological repression (a neurotic, lower level psychological defense) and with maturity, the individual may evolve into using a process of sublimation, one of the most mature defenses, to manage any inappropriate sexual or aggressive impulses.

Contrary to the usual marxist propaganda, it is not capitalism that is encourages the use of immature psychological defenses, but life itself. But, it is capitalism and the capitalist system that offer a healthy channel for the redirection of negative psychic energy into something positive for both the individual and the group at large.

Something, I might add, that marxism, socialism and all its malignant variants completely fail to do. In fact, what they encourage are the use of unhealthy defenses (acting out, reaction formation, denial, projection, displacement to name a few) which, because such defenses are suboptimal and even self-defeating in the long-run, do nothing to improve the lot of either the society at large, or the individual unlucky enough to be living in it.

Societies, like individuals, can adopt mature defenses and deal with reality; or they can deny reality and look elsewhere for the source of their problems. Many countries, like individuals, prefer to put the blame for their own failures onto an outside source, since that is safer for the self-image. In order to maintain the fiction that their problems are caused externally, a group or country or culture needs to indoctrinate children at the earliest age possible in order to make sure that their cognitive faculties are short-circuited and won’t question the ideology or dogma.

A “healthy” country, like a healthy individual will utilize mature defenses to cope with their aggressive and/or sexual impulses. They are not afraid of their aggressive impulses because those impulses are reigned in by reason and not indulged in lightly. They are able to find pleasure and satisfaction in their sexual impusles, not by indiscriminantly indulging in every pleasurable urge or whim, but by harnessing that sexuality to values that promote true intimacy and happiness.

Healthy societies do not encourage either sexual or aggressive (i.e. violent) acting out in their children. On the contrary, healthy societies encourage responsible sexual behavior and appropriate and realistic compromise and accommodation of others.
Sex and aggression are very closely connected. According to Freudian theory, all behavior can be thought of as motivated by a desire to feel pleasure. That motivation is organized and directed by two instincts: sexuality (Eros), and aggression (Thanatos). Freudian psychology in its earliest incarnations was almost obsessively preoccupied with sex. This is because Freud himself lived in a puritanical Victorian-era society and was reacting against the extreme prudishness of the age. The psychological symptoms Freud saw in his practice and described so brilliantly were to be expected in a society that ruthlessly repressed sex.

One does not need to wonder what kind of symptoms are to be expected in a society that, instead of repressing it, glorifies it and indoctrinates its children into sexual pleasures without concomitantly teaching them about personal responsibility or that there are real world consequences to one’s behavior (something that can only be learned with maturity).

In my profession, we have been dealing with these “counterfeiting” symptoms since the “sexual revolution” peaked in the middle of the last century. Nothing like a little Utopian Marxism-gone-berserk to really alienate people from themselves, destroy interpersonal relationships and produce a society that joyfully celebrates sex without personal intimacy for the glorification of the state.

Here in the West, we have glorified one instinct (sex) while ruthlessly suppressing the other (aggression)
Meanwhile, children on the other side of the world are indoctrinated into violence without benefit of conscience, as their religion and culture ruthless suppress sex and glorify aggression and violence in the name of god.

Denmark grants asylum to Eritrean Christian.

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Asylum for Eritrean gospel singer
She does not belong to one of the 4 recognized religious groups, but she belongs to the Evangelical Rema church. Helen Berhane is a Gospel singer and she was arrested in 2004 because she belongs to what is termed in Eritrea as an underground and illegal Church. After a lot of pressure was put on the Eritrean government to obtain her release, Helen Berhane escaped to Khartoum in the Sudan.
What is extraordinary about this story is that Helen Berhane and her daughter Eva applied for asylum in the UK in January, but after 7 months of waiting no decision had been made. Yet, it took the Danish officials one month to accept that Helen and Eva were genuine refugees.
After reading about the torture that Helen and thousands like her experienced in yet another Muslim country where there is such “tolerance” for Christians, one has to wonder what is wrong with the British officials. Helen has to use a wheel chair because of her injuries. This is totally scandalous and against all human rights. Here is some more of the story as posted by the BBCL

An Eritrean Christian gospel singer who was tortured and detained without charge for two years in her homeland has been granted asylum in Denmark.

Helen Berhane was imprisoned inside a metal shipping container and beaten in an effort to make her recant her faith.

Freed in December 2006, she took refuge in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, before being granted asylum.

Ms Berhane uses a wheelchair because of severe injuries to her legs and feet sustained in prison beatings.

More than 90% of Eritreans belong to one of four recognised religions – Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran Churches and Islam.

All other religions were outlawed by a government decree passed in May 2001, though Jehovah’s Witnesses had been denied their rights as Eritrean citizens as early as 1994.

Helen Berhane is a member of the unregistered Rema Church and had just released a cassette of gospel music when she was arrested in the Eritrean capital on 13 May 2004.

She was one of an estimated 2,000 members of illegal evangelical church groups in Eritrea who have been arrested in recent years, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.

Arbitrary detention

After an international campaign, she was released in December 2006 and fled with her sister to Sudan, fearing she could be killed to cover up what had happened to her at the Mai Serwa prison camp near Asmara.

Among the tortures she endured was the infamous “helicopter” position, in which the prisoner is placed face down with arms and legs tied behind the back.

Her account of the cruel and inhumane treatment she suffered is echoed by the testimony of hundreds of others persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Prisoners say they are routinely subjected to extremes of heat and cold, denied water and sanitation, according to testimony collected from exiles by Release Eritrea, an organisation that campaigns for the rights of religious minorities.

Ms Berhane’s daughter, Eva, who joined her in Khartoum, accompanied her to Copenhagen where the two were greeted by campaigners and well-wishers on Friday.

Dr Berhane Asmelash, Director of Release Eritrea, said: “We are relieved that Helen and Eva are finally safe and would like to thank everyone who has supported them.”

“We hope that Helen will now have the peace and space to recover her health and rebuild her life.”

Initially Helen Berhane applied to the United Kingdom for asylum and was interviewed by immigration officials at the British High Commission in Khartoum in January 2007.

Seven months later, with no decision on her case by the British, Ms Berhane sought help from Denmark which took one month to determine that she was a genuine asylum seeker.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s Chief Executive, Mervyn Thomas, said: “We are thrilled that Helen has now finally found refuge for herself and her daughter after so many years of suffering.”

“We cannot forget, however, that 2000 other Christians still languish in Eritrean detention centres simply for holding on to their faith,” Mr Thomas said.