Terrorists Amongst Us


No sooner did I post my "Airport Security Part I" comment when I saw in the news a foiled terrorist attack on a mall in Illinois. I am not surprised that "they" (being "us") caught an individual without any direct ties to a known terrorist group. Is he any different that the abortion-clinic bombers of the Christian right? He doesn't need a "group" to tell him what needs to be done, he simply plans and carries it out himself.

We will be seeing many more of these. Some will truly be operating alone, and others will be more like Dick Reid (the "Shoe Bomber") who had some help, but are more of a small, expendable operation.

Now here's where we get to the kicker. My intent was to say that the biggest difference between the Christian who bombs an abortion clinic and the Muslim who crashes a plane is that the Christian community condemns the Christian, while the Muslim community praises the Muslim.

I felt confident saying this because we have heard so little (e.g. nothing) from the Muslim community expressing outrage over the events. Rather, we see Muslims cheering on CNN.

Then *gasp* I did an Altavista search (Oh, Altavista, why doth though sucketh so much since being purchased by Yahoo?) and to my surprise, the Muslim community not only reacted with outrage over the tragedy of 9/11, but they did so immediately! Funny how this never made any of the news shows I was watching. I think had this actually made American news channels, popular opinion may have helped dictate a different series of events...Look for my next post on Saddam Hussein.

As a security expert, I see too many holes that are there of necessity because of the society we have created for ourselves. We will never cover them all, and to get that last 10% of coverage (see, I made another number up) for the airports will cost a disproportionately large sum of cash; a sum that would be better spent getting other "holes" covered 90%, *especially* since we cannot, with our society, get to the kind of security people want, but without the inconvenience.

The *only* security you will ever have is to make sure that when it's your time to go to the ticket counter in the sky, you're covered. Bring a friend.

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