In the wake of the Boston Bombing, we are left once again with a ridiculous need to react incorrectly to events. This weekend there will be a marathon on Long Island, and security is going to be tight. The London Marathon, which took place less then a week after the Boston race, and before there was a clear picture of exactly who and why the bombings took place, rightfully stepped up security.
The question becomes: why are the organizers of this marathon beefing up security? Is it because they are afraid of copycats, or is it because they assume that all terrorists will always follow what the one before did?
If we really feel that the nation is under attack we need heightened security and metal detectors, guards, dogs, and real anti-terror personnel (as opposed to TSA people who are merely trained to tell people to remove their shoes-for the same reason-someone once put something in his shoe) at every mall, stadium, bus station and public event.
Feel good security doesn't really make us safer, wastes resources better used to train law enforcement and TSA agents in real security (looking people in the eye, asking questions, watching), and generally causes a malaise in the populace, a populace who could be a great partner in the anti-terror effort. Band-aid solutions that only serve to make people think they are safer, can really just make them complacent.
A lot of anti-terror success is luck. But a lot of it could be well thought out, designed plans, follow ups to watch lists and wiretaps, and sharing information.
I am still grateful that people can fly with their underwear.
3 comments:
In Israel, this is the case today. The Central Bus Station, malls, museums and even some restaurants have full scale security - where one is required to have his/her bag checked or scanned and walk through a metal detector. I think this is because the Israeli people have come to terms with the fact that there is actual danger and they understand that sometimes one needs to relinquish some of his freedom in order to hold onto his life.
I am not in any way trying to compare the margin of terror in Israel to that in America. From 1955, and consistently ever since, Israel has suffered from terror attacks such as shootings and bombings of restaurants, public buses and public areas. It is a country surrounded by real threat and danger every day. I have heard statistics* that report that of 730 planned terrorist attacks and 152 suicide bombers which have been discovered, only 49 instances went unstopped.
Forty nine is still a huge number, whichever way one wants to look at it. However, when one compares the number of actual casualties to the number of potential casualties, he should reach the conclusion that maybe Israel is doing something right. Maybe in America we need to be less concerned about how security could be an infringement on our rights on behalf of the government. People stand up for their rights to the extent that they are harmed themselves. We live in a society where the people have more power than those who are entrusted with the job of protecting them.
We live in a society that bends itself over backwards to ensure that every single person, regardless of race or religion, feels that he has the full rights of an American as dictated in the Constitution. A society where a TV show could be sued for having all white male leads. Do I think that racial profiling is always fair, or nice? No. But we can't tiptoe around people just because we are afraid of not fully granting someone the rights of the First Amendment.
Racial profiling exists in Israel. I have been faced with it a number of times myself.
At the end of the day, you want the man who looks like he could kill you with his hands pulled off the bus at the checkpoint. You want the man in full traditional Moslem garb given a once-over before he enters the Central Bus Station. Because when it's your life, you don't try to be nice.
Thomas Jefferson lists the three basic rights as life, liberty and pursuit if happiness.
Not liberty, life. Life, liberty.
Maybe the founding father was afraid of this. Of a nation more concerned with its people's liberty than its life.
Israel could teach America a few things.
*I do not have a source for these statistics. I can ask my history teacher where she got them from.
Because when it's your life, you don't try to be nice.
I always wonder why religious people, who fervently believe in the afterlife, make such a big deal about hanging on to physical life, even if doing so causes pain to others (such as falsely suspecting an innocent person to be a terrorist). If the afterlife is so great, what are you worried about? God's got your back either way.
Now, for people who don't believe in the afterlife, I understand the obsession with physical life. This is their only shot.
Anonymous:
Fervent belief in the afterlife does not preclude one from attributing great value to physical life. On the contrary, we believe that the physical life provides us with opportunities to merit greater rewards in the afterlife. It is the reason that foregoing pleasure in the physical world, where warranted, makes any sense at all.
However, this should not be confused with the idea that anyone who believes in the afterlife is simply waiting around to die. (Of course, I'm not sure whether your comment was driven by confusion or cynicism, but it doesn't really matter).
As for causing pain to others, two comments:
(1) On the "pain scale," being falsely accused of being a terrorist doesn't really rate that high, although I acknowledge that it could be extremely unpleasant.
(2) I'd like to think that I would be willing to undergo some pain to save someone else's life, or even to increase their odds of living, so it doesn't trouble me to have that equation reversed every now and again.
Post a Comment