Regardless of your feelings about the TSA, flying, the war, etc etc. you have to admit the terrorists won.

They forced us to massively overreact with a minimal of effort and sacrifice.

Our economy has had repeated shocks to it, our airlines are ailing, our travellers pay through the nose for a massive infrastructure to protect transportation.

19 evil men acted on one day. Now we have spent billions upon billions in a security infrastructure to prevent another such occurence in one focused and specific area - air travel.

Blame it on the terrorists, our government, whatever. Fact is, the terrorists have won. America has changed fundamentally because of these 19 evil men.

Yes, they have won and you would think our anger at this would prevent the insanity of allowing an organization like the TSA, but it does not. Every trip now has to be unpleasant until at least the doors close, then after that if the FAs want to cop a "we're here primarily for your safety" attitude.

Today, at the airport, some poor guy came rushing back to the main counter to check his luggage. He had been SSSS'd, a benign antique lighter had been found, so he had to either check his luggage and lighter, thrown the lighter away or not take his SFO-RNO trip. Is the TSA so insecure with their procedures that they could not have found any device on his person that would have required a lighter? Did they expect he would light his blanket and bring the plane down? I just don't get it and I feel less safe everytime I fly because I know real terrorists are using these kinds of folly to circumvent and eventually cause real damage.

This is right on and is one of my major bones of contention with our reaction to the events of 9/11. A friend and I discussed what we...if we had a terrorist mindset...would target next to cause the maximum psychological and physical damage. We came up with a list of several dozen "targets", none of which involved an airport or an airplane. I'll not list any of these as we know FT is frequented by dozens of terrorist lurkers.
The US will never have sufficient security to prevent determined terrorists. In fact, if it did, I'm not so sure I'd want to live in such a police state.
So all we've done with the billions of dollars of excessive airport security is to further cripple an ailing airline industry. We've inconvenienced millions of law abiding passengers just to ease Granny and Joe Six Pack's mind during their bi-annual trek through the airport.

Terrorism is really a minor menace. The real terrorists are the Code Orangina with fluoride crowd. The US government has massively inspired terror in fear and caused billions of dollars in financial losses and untold prices paid by people in fear.

The truth is that there is very little terrorism and it isn't much impact on ordinary people. What there is, can often be stopped by plain ordinary police work. Some of it will happen regardless -- much of it from people like the occasional Unibomber or Tim McVeigh.

Washington people are so paranoid, in a medical way, and they are causing the state of permanent war that assures our civil rights are beings suspended for a very long time. And if you keep fearing something long enough, you make more likely to come to pass somehow.

I am very optimistic that this will change, however, because of unpredictable factors, so I am not in a tizzy about it. But nevertheless today that is how I see it.

Eliminate the cause with serious vengance.

OK, I agree with that. But how will we ever know if we have succeeded? Will the absence of terrorist acts be sufficient proof? How long will we have to wait? Ten years, maybe? I don't know if air travel will last that long.

Bruce

How true. If we still have commercial air travel in 10 yrs., I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Air travel may survive only as a government-run monopoly, like Amtrak. A scary thought!

Bruce

And look at how well Amtrak is faring!

"You can't professionalize until you federalize..."



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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

Bruce, I really would hate to see it come to that. However, if things don't start getting better your going to be flying the friendly skies of "Govair".

The terrorists were OUR doing - a product of OUR foreign policy. As the Cold War ended, the UN, not the US, should have taken the World stage. Yes, what the terrorists did was wrong, just as the invasion of Iraq is wrong, but both are the same elements of military agression.

After an initial hunt for those directly involved, a responsible leader would have taken a good analysis of the elements that caused the attacks, and adjusted our foreign policy so that other people would have less reason to want to attack our country.

A recent NPR interview with a Prof. of Middle Eastern studies said this:

Our gov't does not seem to understand that terrorism is not rooted in people, but rather, in ideas. The idea of terrorism is every-changing and without structure. It is impossible to physically contain terrorists. The more we provoke the Middle East, the more fuel we will add to the ideas of terrorism.

We have done exactly what the terrorists wanted - we have ruined our Democracy while fueling decades of terrorism-to-come, which will further suppress our Democracy.

A tiny army only a few dozen managed to get 19 soldiers to defeat our entire trillion-dollar army. Thanks to the assistance of the bush admin, we have lost the war on terrorism.

Today, the USA stands defeated. Our democracy stands a slave to a new fascist police state.

Does anyone have the courage to discard the ruins of democracy and start again?

What I hear you saying is, we need to try to please everyone. If someone or some country is upset with our policy, let's change it, to appease them.

Today, the USA stands defeated. Our democracy stands a slave to a new fascist police state.

So we now live in 1933 Germany?

"Thanks to the assistance of the bush admin, we have lost the war on terrorism" Excuse me? What the hell did the previous administration do to avoid any of this mess?