Al-Anbar Province, Illegal Immigration, and Flying While Arabic
On Ramadi, Badger Six. For your clicky-linking pleasure, Badger 6 conveniently provides a link to the infamous Washington Post story wherein it is explained that al-Anbar Province is a lost cause and it's all George Bush's fault.
Then people wonder why I despise the media.
On Illegal Immigration, Hillbilly White Trash. I like the way he thinks. I'm still in favor of permitting more legal immigration, and also slapping huge flaming fines on companies that employ illegals, like $10K per worker for the first 10, $20K per worker for the next 10, $30K per worker for the next 10, and so on indefinitely. These penalties would be cumulative through the fiscal year, so that if you have 10 illegals working for you this month you get fined $100K. If INS comes back the following month and you have 10 at that time also, that's $200K.
Small businesses can't afford that after a while.
Finally, Tigerhawk on the issue of Flying While Arabic.
Technically, what was objected to was not actually flying while Arabic, but flying while wearing inflammatory T-shirts. . .
Deliberately so, given the context.
Personally, I'm unhappy with everyone in this case EXCEPT JetBlue.
You have Read Jarrar, the other passengers on the jet, the TSA, JetBlue, and the ACLU. I think those are the main players in this little drama.
Oh, let's not forget the terrorist cell in the UK which had been arrested 2 days prior. But they are important as background information.
Raed Jarrar is, effectively, a terrorist supporter. He works for the American Friends Service Committee, an organization which opposes taking any action what so ever to prevent terrorists from killing people. Full stop. The "Friends" are total pacifists and as near as I can tell, would object to shooting concentration camp guards during an escape from Auschwitz. I could be wrong. A pacifist, I don't understand. I can respect an individual pacifist. HOWEVER, anyone who advocates removing my ability to defend myself and my society from the bastards that exist in the Real World [tm] needs to spend a couple years putting their theories into practice in some third-world hellhole so they can experience what happens when defenseless people run into folks who want to rape, torture, and murder others.
Raed Jarrar, in his blog, accuses US troops of "hiding behind Iraqi children" because of a suicide bomb detonated in a crowd of kids who were gathered around a US patrol handing out candy. So really, if Mr. Jarrar gets beaten to death by a crowd of irate airline passengers, it wouldn't break my heart. Anyone who refers to al-Qaeda in Iraq as "the resistance" needs to take his punk ass BACK to Iraq.
Two days after 21 Muslims were arrested in Britain for planning to blow up airliners, he decides to wear a shirt with a small English legend "we will not be silenced" and some writing in Arabic. I presume it says the same thing in Arabic, but I don't read pasta.
I find it vanishingly unlikely that Mr. Jarrar, who had lived in the United States for over a year at that point, was unaware that being a military-age male of Middle Eastern descent wearing an Arabic language t-shirt in an airport would make his fellow travelers highly nervous. In fact, it is my fixed belief that Mr. Jarrar was attempting to provoke a confrontation with airline employees or TSA employees or both. The similarity to the Case of the Flying Imams is obvious.
The passengers on the flight. Wow. Where to begin? Some weedy pipsqueak wearing a tshirt prompts hysteria? T-shirts have great difficulty hiding suicide vests. He wasn't even carrying a carry-on or laptop. Wallet, cell phone, and boarding pass according to the complaint.
WTF? He can't really hide enough explosives to matter. And if a guy like that tried to take over a plane, he'd get monkey-stomped into the afterlife. Guys, grow up. Act like Americans. If there were six or eight of them, I'd understand. If they had carry-ons, I'd understand. But fartin' Mohammad on a pogo stick, one scrawny dude with a goatee in his SHIRTSLEEVES is not a terrorist threat.
TSA. Where to begin with the TSA? The standards of training and professionalism are slim to non-existent. It is my personal belief, based on the experiences I have had with TSA "agents" in the past that TSA agents are hired from the unemployment line based on their ability to find the ON switch on a metal detector four out of five times. They can't frisk competently. They can barely operate the X-ray machine. A drunken chimpanzee that really wanted to could get a weapon into an airport. "Inspector Harris" reacted with stupidity and panic to a dude who, while he is a terrorist supporter and an agent provocateur, isn't really a terrorist operative. He's a punk-ass bitch. There's a difference. And being a punk-ass bitch is NOT illegal in this country. Otherwise, we'd have to imprison most of Hollywood. Except Denzel Washington. He's cool.
JetBlue. Well, JetBlue is pretty much the only folks I don't want to slap the crap out of in this little psychodrama. They've got panicky customers on one hand, and near-hysterical TSA "agents" (who are supposed to be counter-terrorism professionals, hahaha) on the other. They've got a pissy Arabic man ranting about his Constitutional Right to frighten their customers. Where to go from there? Frankly, I don't see a Happy Resolution. They stick him in the back of the plane, with a different shirt that they purchased for him. Not the perfect solution. But it allows them to get the plane off the ground. I'm unimpressed by his claim to a right to free speech on the airplane. You don't have an unlimited right to free speech on the grounds of a business or on private property. The property-owner or business operator can eject you based on offensive language. Let me tell you, no one comes in my home wearing an expression of support for terrorists. I bet a huge "Nancy Pelosi is a Bitch" could also be grounds for being asked to cover up your 'free speech'.
Finally, the ACLU. Well, the ACLU has a hard-on for anyone who is offensive or an asshole, and this is no exception. I find it amusing that they wait a year, so that folks forget the context of the case, the fact that it happened 2 days after a major terrorist plot was foiled. The ACLU provides some unintended comedy, however.
"It is a dangerous and slippery slope when we allow our government to take away a person's rights because of his speech or ethnic background," said Reginald Shuford, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program. "Racial profiling is illegal and ineffective and has no place in a democratic society."
juxtaposed with:
The ACLU said it was clear Jarrar, a U.S. resident since 2005 and the husband of an American citizen, was "not a security threat." It said the TSA official and JetBlue should have simply assured any uncomfortable passengers there was no safety or security risk.
So, ummm, profiling is bad when a person is identified as a security threat, and good when it is used as an argument as to why a person is not a security threat?
The argument is internally inconsistent.
How do we fix this?
Arabs in America need to stop supporting terrorists and rattling cages to provoke confrontations.
The rest of America needs to grow some balls and some self-confidence.
The TSA needs to be disbanded and replaced with an actual professional organization that trains security folks to do an effective job, to include PROPER profiling. America is not threatened by black grandmothers from Detroit, the Future Farmers of America, or the Swedish Bikini Teams. But goatee-wearing geeks in t-shirts aren't much of a threat either.
Then people wonder why I despise the media.
On Illegal Immigration, Hillbilly White Trash. I like the way he thinks. I'm still in favor of permitting more legal immigration, and also slapping huge flaming fines on companies that employ illegals, like $10K per worker for the first 10, $20K per worker for the next 10, $30K per worker for the next 10, and so on indefinitely. These penalties would be cumulative through the fiscal year, so that if you have 10 illegals working for you this month you get fined $100K. If INS comes back the following month and you have 10 at that time also, that's $200K.
Small businesses can't afford that after a while.
Finally, Tigerhawk on the issue of Flying While Arabic.
Technically, what was objected to was not actually flying while Arabic, but flying while wearing inflammatory T-shirts. . .
Deliberately so, given the context.
Personally, I'm unhappy with everyone in this case EXCEPT JetBlue.
You have Read Jarrar, the other passengers on the jet, the TSA, JetBlue, and the ACLU. I think those are the main players in this little drama.
Oh, let's not forget the terrorist cell in the UK which had been arrested 2 days prior. But they are important as background information.
Raed Jarrar is, effectively, a terrorist supporter. He works for the American Friends Service Committee, an organization which opposes taking any action what so ever to prevent terrorists from killing people. Full stop. The "Friends" are total pacifists and as near as I can tell, would object to shooting concentration camp guards during an escape from Auschwitz. I could be wrong. A pacifist, I don't understand. I can respect an individual pacifist. HOWEVER, anyone who advocates removing my ability to defend myself and my society from the bastards that exist in the Real World [tm] needs to spend a couple years putting their theories into practice in some third-world hellhole so they can experience what happens when defenseless people run into folks who want to rape, torture, and murder others.
Raed Jarrar, in his blog, accuses US troops of "hiding behind Iraqi children" because of a suicide bomb detonated in a crowd of kids who were gathered around a US patrol handing out candy. So really, if Mr. Jarrar gets beaten to death by a crowd of irate airline passengers, it wouldn't break my heart. Anyone who refers to al-Qaeda in Iraq as "the resistance" needs to take his punk ass BACK to Iraq.
Two days after 21 Muslims were arrested in Britain for planning to blow up airliners, he decides to wear a shirt with a small English legend "we will not be silenced" and some writing in Arabic. I presume it says the same thing in Arabic, but I don't read pasta.
I find it vanishingly unlikely that Mr. Jarrar, who had lived in the United States for over a year at that point, was unaware that being a military-age male of Middle Eastern descent wearing an Arabic language t-shirt in an airport would make his fellow travelers highly nervous. In fact, it is my fixed belief that Mr. Jarrar was attempting to provoke a confrontation with airline employees or TSA employees or both. The similarity to the Case of the Flying Imams is obvious.
The passengers on the flight. Wow. Where to begin? Some weedy pipsqueak wearing a tshirt prompts hysteria? T-shirts have great difficulty hiding suicide vests. He wasn't even carrying a carry-on or laptop. Wallet, cell phone, and boarding pass according to the complaint.
WTF? He can't really hide enough explosives to matter. And if a guy like that tried to take over a plane, he'd get monkey-stomped into the afterlife. Guys, grow up. Act like Americans. If there were six or eight of them, I'd understand. If they had carry-ons, I'd understand. But fartin' Mohammad on a pogo stick, one scrawny dude with a goatee in his SHIRTSLEEVES is not a terrorist threat.
TSA. Where to begin with the TSA? The standards of training and professionalism are slim to non-existent. It is my personal belief, based on the experiences I have had with TSA "agents" in the past that TSA agents are hired from the unemployment line based on their ability to find the ON switch on a metal detector four out of five times. They can't frisk competently. They can barely operate the X-ray machine. A drunken chimpanzee that really wanted to could get a weapon into an airport. "Inspector Harris" reacted with stupidity and panic to a dude who, while he is a terrorist supporter and an agent provocateur, isn't really a terrorist operative. He's a punk-ass bitch. There's a difference. And being a punk-ass bitch is NOT illegal in this country. Otherwise, we'd have to imprison most of Hollywood. Except Denzel Washington. He's cool.
JetBlue. Well, JetBlue is pretty much the only folks I don't want to slap the crap out of in this little psychodrama. They've got panicky customers on one hand, and near-hysterical TSA "agents" (who are supposed to be counter-terrorism professionals, hahaha) on the other. They've got a pissy Arabic man ranting about his Constitutional Right to frighten their customers. Where to go from there? Frankly, I don't see a Happy Resolution. They stick him in the back of the plane, with a different shirt that they purchased for him. Not the perfect solution. But it allows them to get the plane off the ground. I'm unimpressed by his claim to a right to free speech on the airplane. You don't have an unlimited right to free speech on the grounds of a business or on private property. The property-owner or business operator can eject you based on offensive language. Let me tell you, no one comes in my home wearing an expression of support for terrorists. I bet a huge "Nancy Pelosi is a Bitch" could also be grounds for being asked to cover up your 'free speech'.
Finally, the ACLU. Well, the ACLU has a hard-on for anyone who is offensive or an asshole, and this is no exception. I find it amusing that they wait a year, so that folks forget the context of the case, the fact that it happened 2 days after a major terrorist plot was foiled. The ACLU provides some unintended comedy, however.
"It is a dangerous and slippery slope when we allow our government to take away a person's rights because of his speech or ethnic background," said Reginald Shuford, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program. "Racial profiling is illegal and ineffective and has no place in a democratic society."
juxtaposed with:
The ACLU said it was clear Jarrar, a U.S. resident since 2005 and the husband of an American citizen, was "not a security threat." It said the TSA official and JetBlue should have simply assured any uncomfortable passengers there was no safety or security risk.
So, ummm, profiling is bad when a person is identified as a security threat, and good when it is used as an argument as to why a person is not a security threat?
The argument is internally inconsistent.
How do we fix this?
Arabs in America need to stop supporting terrorists and rattling cages to provoke confrontations.
The rest of America needs to grow some balls and some self-confidence.
The TSA needs to be disbanded and replaced with an actual professional organization that trains security folks to do an effective job, to include PROPER profiling. America is not threatened by black grandmothers from Detroit, the Future Farmers of America, or the Swedish Bikini Teams. But goatee-wearing geeks in t-shirts aren't much of a threat either.
posted by Just A Decurion at 8/12/2007 05:58:00 PM
1 Comments:
interesting info, cool blog. Check out my ancient worldz blog if you get a chance.
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