There has been a lot going on lately and I have been slow to update. In a short amount of time we have had a blood filled revolt on the streets of Iran, a Nigerian attempt to bomb a US plane headed to Detroit, and Obama strikes out to close the year with all those foreign leaders that have hated us for years (Chavez from Columbia and Ahmadinejad from Iran). Let’s start with the revolution that is starting to take off in Iran. While Obama might not think this is a big deal, as is clearly evident through his speeches, I would like to disagree. I think the word of the month has been downplay because we are seeing a lot of this. These riots that have been taking place have not been peaceful. In this latest one upwards of 15 Iranians were killed by police. This didn't stop them, they began taking the weapons from police such as the night sticks and using them.
This is something serious. Imagine if in the United States there was a riot killing 15 people. (Which there has been in the past) This would be a huge news story. These Iranians aren't rioting because they don't like the service at the local McDonald's either. They are looking to change whose in power. Anyone paying attention to this can see that the riots have become more frequent and more violent over the course of the year. To downplay it and not offer strong words of support for the Iranian people and against the Iranian government is foolish.
The majority of Iranian people and youth like America. We bring a lot to the table so it should be natural that they do. The government doesn't like us in the slightest and we are basically months away from having to take out some nuclear reactors. So the fact that Obama refuses to offer strong words of support to the people of Iran bothers me because it makes me think that he wants to still be buddy-buddy with Ahmadinejad.
Next up we have a 23 year old Nigerian the son of a wealthy business man attempting to blow up a plane. If the heart of his plan wasn't to light himself on fire he might have actually succeeded. A piece of detonation cord or an electronic trigger would have been much faster. There are so many problems with this story it’s ridiculous. To start, this guy walked in and got on a plane. He isn't some secret agent mastermind who outsmarted everyone. He is some kid whose screwed up in the head and got lucky.
The problem is though; think of how many times over the last 6 months an Al-Qaeda member has tried to get on a plane. I bet you can’t think of too many times. Now, if there were dozens of reports I could understand one person getting through. I mean, if you throw enough people at a security checkpoint someone is bound to get through or find a weakness sooner or later. This inst the deal though. We had 1 person try 1 time and they succeeded.
The fact that disaster was adverted doesn't make up for the fact that the TSA isn't working how it should be. It would be easy to say that those baggage screeners are simply low wage- low skilled workers. In all honesty though, when you walk into an airport to pass through the security checkpoint are you intimidated by the security presence or just put off at how long the line is? You should really feel a presence while walking up to that checkpoint. If the checkpoint were actually working properly it would be the target to hit for terrorists, because they would know they wouldn't get through.
Before I go too far off topic let’s get back to this 23 year old Nigerian terrorist and his ability to get on a plane. Last time I checked, in this country we have Intelligence organizations whose sole duty is to know about these people and where they are. What a coincidence that this guys father had alerted the embassy that his son may not be behaving. Now, I'm not the director of Homeland Security (Hint Janet Napolitano) but I would think something of this nature would be important.
Napolitano was on Good Morning America a few days ago. She was quoted as asking why this Nigerian wasn't flagged at a higher level and also asked how these explosives got on the plane. She was posing these as questions they are investigating. I don't think Janet realizes that it’s her job to make sure this security works. In fact her sole position and umbrella agency was designed to facilitate better communication between agencies. I think there needs to be some form of new database that the aviation industry uses to book passengers, that way it can be easily checked against the terrorist database known as TIDE. I’m not suggesting that the airports have access to this either, considering certain privacy expectations.
The final topic I want to hit before I wrap this up is Obama. I want to try and keep this short. It is no secret that Obama has had a policy of attempting to talk with nations that don’t like us. Two of the important ones would be Venezuela whose president is Chavez and Iran whose president is Ahmadinejad. Now, many don’t know how Obama placed a year-end deadline for Iran that dealt with their nuclear program and cleaning it up so they can’t make bombs. Well, the New Year is only a few days away and Iran is laughing at us. I can’t blame Obama for trying because one would always hope that it works out. However, now that we know Iran will not work with us and is actively working to make an atomic bomb we can’t sit behind words.
Remember the saying, actions speak louder than words. People like Hitler got so far because everyone wanted to be diplomatic right to the very end. Let’s not make the same mistake with Iran and let things get out of hand before it’s too late. Given the serious revolts going on in Iran right now, being more assertive and blockading and taking out key targets could prove to be very beneficial. Ahmadinejad said, "We don't care about international deadlines over Iran's nuclear program.” How much clearer does it need to be?
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