Political correctness impairs airport security We have to ignore all the hand-wringing liberals and political interference, writes Ruth Dudley Edwards I bought an ulu in Alaska a couple of years ago. It's a sharp pocket knife with which Sarah Palin could efficiently skin a caribou or a terrorist cut the throat of a recalcitrant air steward. On return from a recent trip to Dublin, I found it nestling forgotten at the bottom of my handbag, having been undetected by both Heathrow or Dublin X-ray machines. The people who watch the screens have a boring, repetitive job, and even if potentially dangerous items show up, they often get through. Security in airports is a con. Except in Israel, of which more later. In the past 18 months or so I've been on 70 or more planes and been checked by security in around a dozen airports in Europe and the US. Mostly, what goes on is a complete waste of time. The explosive powder concealed in the underpants of the Nigerian wannabe bomber was undetectable by X-ray, as would have been the syringe with the nasty liquid. (No one has ever spotted the adrenaline syringe I carry to ward off anaphylactic shock from wasp-stings.) The body-scanners that are now about to be brought in at enormous expense will be useless against the latest cutting-edge Islamist initiative -- what Americans are delicately calling the butt-bomb. It's a winner, this. While there's the disadvantage that if you trigger it in situ, your body will take the main force of the blast, all you have to do is pop into the loo, extract the PTN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate) from your rectum and set it off when you get back to your seat more efficiently than did young Mr Abdulmutallab. Then, hey presto, plenty of dead people will be raining down on the city of your choice. We have to get real. And that means for a start accepting dogs, profiling, behavioural identification and -- crucially -- operational independence. As the Slovakian security people have demonstrated dramatically, dogs are as good at sniffing out plastic explosives as they are at spotting drugs. The unfortunate Stefan Gonda, arrested by gardai for unwittingly carrying the RDX (Research Department Explosives -- as used successfully in August 2004 by two female Chechens on two Russian aircraft) planted on several passengers by Slovak police testing out their sniffer dogs, did not actually surmount the canine barrier. The dogs had 100 per cent success, but the handler who had put two samples of an explosive into Gonda's bag forgot to take out the second when the dog found the first. So let's have the dogs checking people and baggage as they arrive at the airport so no-one can saunter into security with his knapsack, blow up hundreds of queueing passengers and wreck the airport. Now, profiling. The civil liberties people scream about the wickedness of paying special attention to particular ethnic, religious or age groups. Rubbish. These days, apart from the odd Tamil Tiger, suicide bombers are Muslim, the vast majority are of Asian background, almost all are under 30 and most are still male. Keep security minimal for the rest of us and focus on the core group. Women won't put too much strain on the system: so far, their bombers wear enveloping Islamic dress. Knife crime is going down in London because police have finally decided to ignore hand-wringing liberals and search black kids, who are the main perpetrators and victims. Very few parents complain: they don't want their kids to murder or die. Similarly, it was only the malcontents and republican activists who whinged when, during the heyday of the Provos, the Irish were singled out for security checks. I'm not suggesting that everyone within the core group should be subjected to specially intimate security checks. This is where behavioural identification comes in. The Israelis, who need and have the best security system in the world, are adept at interpreting body language: suicide bombers are mostly tyros and their nervousness shows. If the sweaty ones have to be strip-searched or go home -- tough. Above all, while airport police should be subject to the law, they should be free of political interference. Politically correct politicians from the UK to Canada have caved in to pressure from Muslims and agreed that the devout should not have an unclean animal near their sacred person. They have rejected profiling as racist and discriminatory and therefore have subjected us all to hours of pointless misery. (I've had the experience in America of being taken out of a queue boarding the aircraft to be re-searched so as to be a middle-aged, white, female counterpoint to the searching of a dodgy-looking young man in full Islamic gear.) Behavioural identification techniques will be swamped if its practitioners are expected to view every passenger as an equal threat. Lay off, politicians. Stop wasting our money and let the cops do their job.
jimi_t wrote: » Fairly rare that I'd read the Indo (or its inbreed cousin the Sindo) but this article caught my eye and I'm shocked how this objectionable old bint hasn't been the focus of an AH toasting yethttp://www.ruthdudleyedwards.co.uk/journalism10/IrInd10_02.html
Similarly, it was only the malcontents and republican activists who whinged when, during the heyday of the Provos, the Irish were singled out for security checks.
jimi_t wrote: » and I'm shocked how this objectionable old bint hasn't been the focus of an AH toasting yet
stovelid wrote: » For a minute, I thought you were advocating that we roast her. Please don't do that when I'm eating my lunch.
Knife crime is going down in London because police have finally decided to ignore hand-wringing liberals and search black kids, who are the main perpetrators and victims.
Magnus wrote: » Afaik this is true. In US the most common cause of death for black teenagers are getting killed by other black youth. Could be the same in UK. Some interesting stuff here http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/murder.html
OutlawPete wrote: » Hope some security from the airport read that and recognize her the next time she's flying off to Aspen. I hope it's a time when she has forgotten her fancy pocket knife and so they have to slip on some latex gloves and make damn sure she is not in possession of it.
Loach's political viewpoint "requires the portrayal of the British as sadists and the Irish as romantic, idealistic resistance fighters who take to violence only because there is no other self-respecting course,"
......hand-wringing liberals......
markesmith wrote: » Makes you wonder what right-thinking individual would read the Indo or the Sindo. They seem to go in for employing self-hating Irish and patronising British people descended from the landed gentry. That article is pretty odious, but not at all surprising for that particular newspaper.
orourkeda wrote: » It's a rag. Plain and simple. In fact there's no decent Journalism in Ireland.
Dudley wrote: As the Slovakian security people have demonstrated dramatically...
enniscorthy wrote: » This old hag is infact what you may term as a bullshit journalist / revisionist historian who has taken an objectional look and a pessimistic view towards all things Irish, Catholic or can you imagine both (!!!) throughout all her years of senseless mindless pontificating. Her crazy utterings and revisionist ideas are unbelievably given time on the airwaves and in the press. She described the Irish Famine in terms like it wasn’t that bad, or just that’s the way things were back then. She is embarrassed by England’s turbulent role in Ireland’s affairs and tries to demean Irish National Heroes such as Padraic Pearse. She recently proposed that Ireland should join the British Commonwealth and called people who disagreed with her a lunatic fringe. She is of the opinion that us terrible Irish deserve everything we got throughout the years of England's historical interference in Ireland. She is a London apologist who has been disowned, debunked and disregarded by all but the middle to upper class politically correct athiest west Brit anglophile white people who read rags such as the West British Independent.
enniscorthy wrote: » oh did i say all that hehehehehehehahahaha what i actually meant was : hahahahah ruth dudley edwards good 1 hehehehehe she wouldnt get a job writing for the BEANO hehehehahahahahaahhahehehehhahahahahahohohohohoho
Bambi wrote: » Remember when that IRA tout was tied up, beaten up and robbed by some lads from a gay bar he was drinking that he invited back for a few after hours (he's not gay of course though). He was staying in a place dudley dedwords had leant him. They're all a nice happy west brit club working for their shady masters
enniscorthy wrote: » This old hag is infact what you may term as a bullshit journalist / revisionist historian who has taken an objectional look and a pessimistic view towards all things Irish, Catholic or can you imagine both (!!!) throughout all her years of senseless mindless pontificating. Her crazy utterings and revisionist ideas are unbelievably given time on the airwaves and in the press.
enniscorthy wrote: » ...... athiest west Brit anglophile white people who read rags such as the West British Independent.
brianthebard wrote: » She's not a revisionist, she's just an idiot. There's a difference.
Nodin wrote: » Actually shes turned holy joe in her later years.
