As Jerry Seinfeld would say, “What’s the deal with airport security?” I remember hearing a story at the end of 2001/early 2002 about a retired Marine General who was not allowed through security (in fact was detained, questioned, and summarily humiliated) because he tried to board his flight with his Medal of Honor in his pocket.
The Medal of Honor is the highest decoration our country can bestow, and most people die in the process of earning it (saving many lies in doing so.) Of all the men and women who have served in Operation Iraqi/Enduring Freedom, only one person has been awarded this medal, albeit posthumously: Marine CPL Jason Dunham jumped on a grenade to save his patrol.
Anyhow, no one in Airport security had the training to understand that retired Generals who have earned the Medal of Honor are not a threat to our country.
In other news, there were the 6 Muslim Imans who were pulled off a flight in Minnesota because they were dressed in robes and turbans, sported full, uncut beards, and were speaking in Arabic. Again, someone failed to realize that every terrorist from the 9/11 attack were clean cut, dressed in dockers, and appeared to be students or programmers.
In America, we still have an embarrassing lack of knowledge of Islam and all things Arab. If we are attacked in the future by muslims, there is a great chance that the terrorists will not look like Arabs at all. A growing percentage of Africa is Muslim, poor, disenfranchised, and mad as hell at America. Also, we have Indonesians and Filipinos to worry about. When I took a terrorism counteraction as a Marine in 1994, we studied several attacks in the Philippines - that is a hornet's nest going way back, and that may soon find its way onto American soil.
However, the most effective terrorist attacks that America has faced (after 9/11, of course) have come from former enlisted military men, all but one of which was white. John Muhammad (and his "son" John Lee Malvo) was a rare exception. Besides the anomaly, we have Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Charles Whitman, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Andres Raya, to name the most famous in my mind. Unfortunately, I fit into this category. However, I wouldn't mind being profiled if it made my nation safer.
I just wish we could leave the pregnant women, grandmas, retired Generals, and 7 year old kids alone.
1 comment:
It's been a few years ago now, but post 9/11, when my extended family took a cruise together in the Caribbean. Two white males in our party were pulled aside for additional scrutiny--one was my husband who has had a high-level security clearance for carpentry work in federal facilities, the other was a major with the KCPD.
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