"I'll do it again" says Blair
The Chilcot Inquiry is looking at events between 2001 and 2009, covering the decision to go to war against Iraq, whether troops were properly prepared, how the conflict was conducted and what planning there was for its aftermath. It is claimed that the terms of reference are unprecedented in their breadth.
Inquiry Chairman, Sir John Chilcot, says he will not shirk from apportioning blame where he sees fit. 179 British service personnel were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2009. Many tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians died over the period.
The inquiry began in July 2009. Sir John and the four other panel members met some of the families of the 179 UK personnel killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2009 as well as former and current serving personnel. During the meetings, several relatives of those killed criticised the decision to go to war, saying the British people had been lied to about the threat posed by Iraq.
Sir John and his fellow panel members also spent weeks examining thousands of relevant documents from across government. Some documents have not been declassified, meaning that although the inquiry can view them they cannot be made public.
The report of the result of the inquiry is being delayed till 2011. This shows it is a partisan one as the result should have been before the British people before the next General election.
So not much good can be expected out of this. The time frame says it all.
This man, Tony Blair, should be put away for life. He is a psychopath!
Tony Blair told the Chilcot Inquiry the he was prepared to do the same again! That is - To kill thousands of innocent people!
What Tony Blair wants to do again is kill many hundred thousand innocent women and children to fulfill HIS belief that there are weapons of mass destruction anywhere where someone whom he does not like is in power.
This man, Tony Blair, is a war criminal on par with Bush, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin.
There is only one place for the likes of him.
A secure mental institution, where his arrogance, stupidity and poodle-like behaviour are never again unleashed on this world.
In front of the Inquiry, yesterday, Tony Blair was arrogant and unrepentant about all the unnecessary killings of innocent Iraqis. He linked the Iraq war to 9/11, which is simply not true. Not a single Iraqi was involved in 9/11.
Blair claimed falsely that Saddam Hussain was not allowing the Weapons Inspectors to do their job. This is simply not true. There is ample evidence from both Dr. Hans Martin Blix and Dr. Mohamed Mostafa ElBaradei what was the situation on the ground in Iraq. They were pleading for just a little more time to confirm their findings that there were no WMD in Iraq.
That would have been unacceptable to Bush and Blair as they wanted to spill blood - innocent blood, not caring whose blood it was!
Blair wanted, like Bush and Margaret Thatcher, to go down in history as a man in shining armour carrying his country to victory(?). Tony Blair destroyed the lives of several British men and women and their families to try to go down in glory in the history books.
A tragic victory (?) for whom?
Not for the innocent civilian women and children Iraqis that Blair and Bush have mutilated and murdered!
Tony Blair certainly goes down in My history book as a WAR CRIMINAL!
Labels: innocents, Inquiry, Iraq, killed, Sir John Chilcot, Tony Blair, War, War criminal
Obama cried "Foul"! Interesting!
Barack Obama
President Barrack Obama's State of the Union speech was interesting in that it was full of contradictions.
He said he is phasing down the US military agenda abroad, whereas all he has done since is coming to the office is to ramp it up, continue the policies of the previous administration and show no direction in world politics, except rhetoric.
However the most glaring statement made by him was the criticism levelled at the US Supreme Court, which in its recent ruling, stated that Corporations had equal rights as individuals as to their role in election financing!
Obama may stand today for something different. He may have been supported by mass popular appeal.
That was because he had a great spin machine.
Let us look at the composition of the US Supreme Court today:
Chief Justice John Roberts
Associate Justices
John Paul Stevens
Antonin Scalia
Anthony Kennedy
Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer
Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor
Do you note anything in particular?
The Roberts Court (2005–present) began with the confirmation and swearing in of Chief Justice John G. Roberts on September 29, 2005, and is the current presiding court.[58] The Roberts Court is seen as more conservative than the previous court.[59] Some of the major rulings so far have been in the areas of abortion (Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood,[60] Gonzales v. Carhart);[61] anti-trust legislation (Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc.);[62] the death penalty (Baze v. Rees,[63] Kennedy v. Louisiana);[64] the Fourth Amendment (Hudson v. Michigan);[65] free speech of government employees and of high school students (Garcetti v. Ceballos,[66] Morse v. Frederick);[67] military detainees (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld,[68] Boumediene v. Bush);[69] school desegregation (Parents v. Seattle);[70] voting rights (Crawford v. Marion County Election Board);[71] the Second Amendment (District of Columbia v. Heller),[72] and campaign finance (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission).[73]
Do you remember when Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito were appointed? 2005 and 2006!
These two radical fundamentalist Justices were appointed under the previous administration when Obama was in the Senate.
What was he doing then?
Although he did not support the appointment of these two people, what was he doing in the Senate?
When Bush had no 60 vote majority, did Obama stand up and filibuster these appointments? Did he lobby his fellow Democrats and convince them of his belief of what lay ahead with the appointment of these two people to the Supreme Court?
Obama showed no leadership then, just as today he is swinging with the wind!
Obama can cry foul today, but he was a short-sighted Senator jockeying his position to power when these crucial appointments were made.
The rest of the democratic world could see what lay ahead.
If the man had no vision then, can you expect him to have any different vision today?
Obama can cry "FOUL" all he wants, TODAY. But he is the one, by his irresponsibility and lack of courage of convictions, that made what occurred in the Supreme Court last week, happen!
Labels: Alito, Barrack Obama, Corporations, filibuster, Justice, President, Right, Roberts, Senate, Supreme Court, US, wing
What about Western Democracy?
Jacob speaks at Free Speech Day in Oulu
Yesterday, I gave the reasons why I thought American Democracy, as it stands today, is pure crap.
Some of you have written to me about what I thought about Western Democracies, as a whole.
I am not an expert about Western Democracy, but I certainly know the Finnish System.
What would you say if one Government is a co-habitation of the Conservative Right with the Centre Party. In the next, it works out as a co-operation between the Conservative Right and the Socialist Left. The following Government turns out as a co-habitation between the Centre and the Socialist Left.
This is the outcome of the proportional system of election.
In short, there are no moralities or party positions in this form of election system. And that has been what the Finnish Democratic System is all about.
Would you, therefore, trust a politician who gets elected on a party platform and then, to get power, throws all his / her "principles" to the wind?
I would not.
In addition to this form of horse trading, the Police, the Judiciary and the Bureucracy are corrupt to the core in Finland. And the corruption is at the very top, not at the bottom, where there are just paid employees doing their job and carrying out orders.
Further, the entire legal system, administered through a bunch of self-serving lawyers, ensures that this corruption continues unabated. The Finnish Lawyer's Association (Suomen Asianajajaliitto) , supposedly to investigate any actions of their brotherhood which are questionable, exists purely to protect the brotherhood and the fair name of their corrupt profession.
A complaint to the Chancellor, or the Ombudsman, usually gets short shrift. They too form part of this corrupt power base.
Why would they want to shake it?
In such a situation, there can certainly be only one conclusion that the Finnish Democratic System is not a workable model.
Yes, it does work beautifully for the Oligarchic elite which rule the country and those hand-maidens who live of the crumbs that fall from the Master's Table.
But as far as the general public is concerned, Democracy means nothing except to accept what their Feudal Masters decide is in "their" best interest.
(Based on the text contained in the new book "Inheritance Nightmare" written by Jacob Matthan. This is a true story of how the Finnish corrupt systems continues to function with no checks and balances as of today!)
Labels: Bureaucracy, Corrupt, Democracy, Finland, free speech, Inhertitance Nightmare, Jacob, Judiciary, Lawyers, Obama, Oulu, Police, Politicians, President, System, western
American Democracy is pure crap
Last week, the American Supreme Court made a historic decision, 5-4, that a Corporation has the same election rights as a person.
If one looks at this decision, then one wonders what way of life is being protected by the American Constitution.
In short, the American Constitution is crap. Anyone who follows that Constitution is only fooling himself / herself that they live in a Democracy.
I reproduce here, the article which appeared in Buzzflash.
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
By Mark Karlin
From the presidential election stolen in December of 2000 by a 5-4 vote to the 5-4 vote in January of 2010, the decade is bracketed with a partisan Republican High Court that twice shoved the basic underpinnings of democracy -- government of the people, by the people and for the people -- into a garbage compactor and crushed our electoral rights.
BuzzFlash was one of the few progressive sites on the Internet -- and perhaps the loudest and most in your face -- when Antonin "the Fixer" Scalia stopped the 2000 recount in Florida because Al Gore would have overtaken Bush and become president. Then SCOTUS, despite virtually all legal prognostication that it would never take the case and a contrary lower Appellate court ruling, annointed George W. Bush president by a 5-4 vote.
Fast forward just a few weeks more than a decade later, replace Rehnquist with Roberts and O'Connor with Alito, and you have the same 5-4 dynamic of right wing extremist judges trampling on the seeds of democracy by declaring that corporations can finance elections in the same way as people, building upon a pernicious concept -- that BuzzFlash has discussed for some time -- known as "corporate personhood."
Just yesterday, I discussed that the best and most accessible history of how we ended up here is in Thom Hartmann's book, "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights."
I was talking on the phone this morning with Thom, and he brought up the irony that may be prophetic that the infamous Dredd Scott decision that declared slaves to be property led to the Civil War. Now, we have a Supreme Court decision that affirmed that corporations have, according to the GOP 5-4 vote, the same election rights as people.
Global corporations and Wall Street financial firms have become stifling, obstructive institutions that impede innovation and democracy, but they do not breathe; in fact, they suffocate. They don't encourage or stimulate entrepeneurship and small businesses with new ideas; they crush them.
For America, it's been a decade of two Supreme Court coups that have stolen democracy and replaced it with something akin to activist right wing judicial rulings on behalf of the oligarchy that pulls the strings in D.C.
The Dredd Scott decision, as Hartmann points out, resulted in the Civil War.
Will we sit back and passively accept that corporations have the same rights to elect our government as people do?
Are corporations now to be championed by the "pro-life" zealots to boot?
It might not be time for a Civil War, but it is time for a non-violent populist revolt to restore our Constitutional rights as people and to protect ourselves from the predatory corporations that now will transparently buy their politicians in D.C.
If "knowledgable judges" can come up with verdicts such as this, one really wonders how Americans can live with themselves under this Constitution.
If I were an American , either I would fight such gross misuse of the Judicial Forum or I would pick up my bags and go to a country which is a Democracy!
I would even go to the extent of forming a Corporation and making that Corporation stand for the American Presidency!Luckily, I am not an American.
I hope all of Americans out there enjoy the next edition of "Big Brother". Probaly that is all the majority of you are capable of doing!
Labels: American, Buzzflash, Constitution, corporation, crap, idiotic decisions, legal, Mark Karlin, person, Scalia, status, Supreme Court
Dilemma! What do I do?
Jacob and Annikki (with granddaughter Asha)
I was in this dilemma when I stated blogging in December 2004. I had one blog for all my different audiences. At that time I also had web pages devoted to different sectors of readers.
There was a clamour amongst my readers of the blog that I was out of tune with them as they were reading many items that they were not interested in as they pertained to my alma maters or something specific to Oulu, etc.
It was then I started breaking up my blogs - besides my primary Blog (Jacob's Blog), I started one on Politics, another related to my association with Cathedral School (Mumbai), another about St. Stephen's College (Delhi), another about finding goods and services in Oulu, etc.
Everybody was happy!
All went well till my recent trip to India, where I stopped all my auxiliary blogs and kept only my main blog going, with just a few very specific entries to my other blogs.
My readership shot up as it appeared that many were interested in all aspects of my trip around India - which I had termed as "Incredible India".
The readership more than doubled at one point. People were referring others to my blog and it just snow-balled into a massive readerfest. Old and young, relatives and friends, school and college mates, Findians, O-Indians, my professional colleagues, past and present, were all tuned in. And many strangers from around the world were liking my style!
Wherever I went I found I needed no introduction as people had been following my blog. As I recorded, at one stage it became highly embarrassing, as people would come up to me and ask whether I knew them!
On returning to Finland, I went back to my old system.
Now I am having a spate of complaints. Many say that I should only blog at one point.
That would be great for me but not fair on my diverse audience. For instance the Cathedral School Alumni Association have especially complimented me on my sustained effort to keep the school spirit at its height by my blogging.
That is definitely not possible as my Seventh Heaven and Kooler Talk Blogs have very specific readerships. And not everyone likes my Politics. To burden all my regular readers with MY political views would be unfair. And my Oulu Best (Worst) Buy Blog is very specific to my Oulu Readers. Who in India or USA wants to read about the price of eggs in Oulu?
Is there any single solution, which is outside my very limited knowledge, which will help keep all my readers happy?
One way is that you could become a "Follower" of a specific blog. Whenever the one you are interested is updated, you will get a message from Google. No infringement of your privacy. You can always stop the "Follower" program whenever you want.
That way, it would stop my having to post important blog entries on my multiple blogs. (Possibly - as I have not yet looked into the ramifications of this alternative.)
If you have any suggestions, please email me or leave me a COMMENT. (Although my blogs are not exactly "Comment" blogs, I do read all the comments and reply them appropriately - also knocking off the spam that does come in.
This entry is being posted on all my major blogs, as it concerns all my readers in all categories.
Labels: Best Buy, Blog, complaints, Follower, Jacob’s, Kooler Talk, multiple, Oulu, politics, Reader, Seventh Heaven, specific
Obama gets kicked in his teeth
US Senate
Yesterday was the crucial Massachusetts election to elect the replacement Senator for the late Edward Kennedy.
It is true that the Republicans ran a good campaign while the Democrats ran one of the worst campaigns ever run by a Senate candidate.
But the difference of almost 5% (52% Republicans - 47% Democrats) in a "safe" Democrat seat was not a result of this.
The result reflected a total rejection of how President Barrack Obama is keeping his campaign promises when he promised "CHANGE".
What has changed in troop deployments? The US forces are still stuck in Iraq. A new front has been opened by sending additional troops to Afghanistan. The "Stop Loss" programme in the US army has not been reformed. Another new front has opened in Yemen. Extra-judicial killings using drones and hit squads has continued. Guantanamo has not been closed. America has experienced another suicide bomber aboard a US plane! The area of attacks has widened.
This is not what the American people voted for when the elected Barrack Obama. He kept claiming he voted against the Iraq War - now we see that was a big lie!
In addition the attacks on the USA has increased BECAUSE of the "collateral damage" inflicted by US forces on innocent lives in different parts of the world.
The bank bail out has benefited Wall Street, and not Main Street.
Barrack Obama is weak on how he tries to negotiate with the Republicans.
With 60 votes in the Senate all his efforts are mired.
Did pResident Bush ever have 60 votes when he hammered the American people with his agendaå?
It shows the weakness of the Democrat Party and also President Obama.
The Democrats may cry all they want - but as long as they have such weak leaders in both the House and the Senate, things are goíng nowhere. America will be back in Bush country before long and the Republicans will be talking about the "nuclear option" when the do not even have 50 votes in the Senate!
To give a Democrat Senator a personal sweetener to get him to vote for a Democrat sponsored bill on Health Care reform, really took the cake!
Say bye-bye Democrats - you had your chance and it seems you BLEW IT!
Labels: 60, colayersl, democrat, dsmage, election, failure, Massachusetts, Obama, party, policies, policy, President, republicsn, seats, Senate, troops
Integration Council members
I read today in the Indian Telegraph about the new "Minority boost to integration council".
Here are the names of people that may be on that council:
The Telegraph has learnt that the proposed names include those of Justice A.M. Ahmadi, Omar Abdullah, Salman Khurshid, Syed Shahabuddin, Asaduddin Owaisi, Shahid Lateef, Shabnam Hashmi, John Dayal, Ramdas M. Pai (president and chancellor, Manipal University), Valsan Thampu (St Stephen’s College principal), Roman Catholic Archbishop Vincent M.C. Concessao, Ratan Tata, Rahul Bajaj, N.R. Narayana Murthy and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.
Recognise some names in that list?
Shahid Lateef is the wife of 62er Stephanian Sarwar Lateef. John Dayal is a Stephanian, as also present Principal of the College, Rev. Valsan Thampu. Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, Rahul Bajaj, is both a 58er Stephanian and also a 54er Cathedralite. Ratan Tata swas a Cathedralite (53er) for a part of his education. I have not had the good fortune to meet him personally, although his younger brother, Jimmy, was a close friend and my hockey mate.
During my recent visit to Delhi I did meet John, Valsan and Rahul.
John Dayal
Rahul Bajaj
Valson Thambu
John broke protocol and came to see me the day I was leaving. He had just got back from Orissa and he came over that morning just to spend a few minutes over breakfast. And I did say a short prayer, holding hands with him, for his devoted work for the people of India. Maybe this is where I show him the meaning for that prayer.
I met Thambu at the St. Stephen's Founder's Day celebration on Monday 7th December, where I took part in the Holy Communion Service in the College Chapel, and then at the proceedings in the College Assembly Hall where former Indian President Abdul Kalam was the Chief Guest.
Sadly I do not see Valsan as a man with much vision at this moment of time. Hopefully God will lead him in the right direction if he gives up his ways of playing politics for power!
And Rahul paid me the greatest tribute by staying on a extra day in Delhi to be present at an event organised by Delhi Cathedrtalite to meet with Annikki and me. Having led an industry to the zenith, he now has a wondeful opportunity to show his fellow men that he has the vision to lead minorities to the centre of Indian society as equals.
Sadly, I did not learn till later that Sarwar and Shahid were in Delhi, as otherwise I would certainly have met up with this very dear couple. Shahid has always been at the forefront of the women's movement as well as a powerful spokesperson for uplifting of Muslim women.
I do hope this Council will stop beating about the bush and get a move on, not on the antiquated model of reservation of seats for the minorities in schools, colleges and jobs, but by uplifting the hearts and minds of these people labelled as minorities, into them thinking that they can compete on equal terms with the best of the world. They are not second class citizens of the world, so let us stop treating them as such.
You treat people as weak
and they will be weak. You treat them as human beings and
they can outstrip the very best.
Look at the fantastic performance of the black community in sports in the USA and UK (and also Kenya, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Canada, France, etc., etc.). They do not need to be treated as weak and powerless minorities. Given the right role models, they will bring in performances that are better than the best of their more fortunate brothers and sisters.
That itself is the tonic for success, not reservations, which is the sure tonic for failure!I remember the words of my friend, former Ambassador Niranjan Desai, while we were having lunch together at the International Centre just a few weeks ago. He said that by treating the minorities as we do presently, we will not achieve any improvement in their standards.
I fully agree with his reasoning. This Integration Council should start looking at other ways to uplift the ethnic minorities in India than stupid and unrealistic reservation policies!
Recognise inherent cultural and ethnic talents. Build on successes. Do not force people into streams where they are doomed to fail.
In short, I hope this council will bring forward a new vision to the way we handle the integration of minorities into mainstream society!
Labels: council, Integration, John Dayal, minorities, new vision, Rahul Nsjaj, Shaid Zlateef, Valdon Thambu
Useless Terrorist profiling
This post is under my JM Politics Blog, but I thought it important enough to give it multiple exposure, so it is also posted on my main "Jacob's Blog of 7th January 2010".
I just read an excellent article in Think Progress, January 6, 2010, by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Zaid Jilani, and Alex Seitz-Wald: "TERRORISM: The Wrong Kind Of Profiling" (reproduced below, Copyright acknowledged) which highlighted how the right wing conservatives in the US and other countries are talking about ethnic and racial profiling, as they consider all Muslims as terrorists before they board an aircraft, etc.
TERRORISM
The Wrong Kind Of Profiling
Following the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack by 23-year old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a public debate has erupted over the proper way to prevent terrorists and other criminals from endangering airline passengers in the future. While many politicians, pundits, and public policy leaders have engaged in responsible and rational discussions about the intelligence failures that allowed Abdulmutallab to bring bomb materials on an aircraft, a whole host of conservatives have endorsed racial and ethnic profiling that would seek out terror suspects simply on the basis of the color of their skin or religious identity. While many right wingers seem to be comfortable with succumbing to racist and nativist hysteria, the truth is that racial and ethnic profiling is tremendously ineffective. A more rational approach to profiling based on behavior -- rather than race or identity -- would help keep Americans safe while maintaining our civil rights and constitutional freedoms.
THE RIGHT'S EXTREMIST REACTION: It wasn't long after Abdulmutallab's failed attack that conservative pundits and politicians began to call for racial and ethnic profiling of people from Muslim backgrounds. Right-wing radio host Mike Gallagher argued for separate lines at airports to "scrutinize anybody with the name Abdul or Ahmed or Mohammed," which are some of the most common names in the world. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said, "One hundred percent of the Islamic terrorists are Muslim, and that is our main enemy today. So why should we not be profiling people because of their religion?" Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote a column on Human Events titled "On Terrorism it's Time to Know, to Profile, and to Discriminate," in which he claimed that "cultural sensitivities" are preventing security officials from stopping terrorism; the next day, Gingrich clarified his comments by saying he thinks that profiling should be based "on behavior, not ethnic ... [or] racial profiling." Perhaps the most brazen call for ethnic profiling came from retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, who declared, "If you are an 18 to 28-year old Muslim man then you should be strip searched. And if we don't do that, there's a very high probability that we're going to lose an airliner."
WHY RACIAL PROFILING DOESN'T WORK: The fact is that racial and ethnic profiling doesn't work. It creates a false sense of security and causes law enforcement resources to be wasted in chasing the wrong targets. As the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights' reports, racial profiling "diverts precious law enforcement resources away from investigations of individuals...who have been linked to terrorist activity by specific and credible evidence...[and] ignores the possibility that someone who does not fit the profile may be engaged in terrorism." Indeed, On Dec. 28, two Middle Eastern men were pulled off a flight heading to Phoenix because passengers reported they were engaging in suspicious behavior; it ended up that the men were simply speaking a Middle Eastern language. The same day, a Nigerian businessman was taken off an airplane because passengers became suspicious that he was lingering in the bathroom for too long. The FBI confirmed that the individual's behavior was due to a legitimate illness. It's important to note that terrorists come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and do not simply belong to one religion, ethnicity, or nationality. The "shoe bomber," Richard Reid, was Jamaican and British. Al Qaeda recruit Adam Pearlman was an American. Germaine Lindsay, one of London's 7/7 bombers, was Afro-Caribbean. Scott Roeder, who killed abortion-performing doctor George Tiller last year, was a white evangelical Christian. Racial profiling would, as Salam Al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council notes, extend our police dragnet over "potentially hundreds of thousands of [innocent] people every year" and drain precious resources away from other, more important security measures. And as a recent study by the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science concludes, racial profiling has been no more effective than random screening in rooting out terrorists.
A BETTER WAY: While racial and ethnic profiling is a failed strategy that goes against our basic values, there are smarter profiling methods that police and other security officials can use to prevent acts of terrorism. A memo titled "Assessing Behaviors" circulated by law enforcement officials in October 2002 outlined such a strategy. One of the writers of the memo pointed out, "Fundamentally, believing that you can achieve safety by looking at characteristics instead of behaviors is silly. If your goal is preventing attacks...you want your eyes and ears looking for pre-attack behaviors, not characteristics." Former Bush counterterrorism officials have also objected to racial profiling and point out that looking for suspicious behavior is much more important. Former Bush CIA director Michael Hayden said that seeking out terrorists isn't "a question of ethnicity or religion." Rather, "it's what people do that we should be paying attention to." Former Bush Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argued that "relying on preconceptions or stereotypes is actually kind of misleading and arguably dangerous" because terrorists intentionally recruit people "who don't fit the stereotype." Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International, suggests "effective profiling...is based on the analysis of the...behavior of a passenger and an inspection of the traveler's itinerary and passport; it does not and should not be based on race, religion, nationality or color of skin." As former Homeland Security press secretary Russ Knocke explained in 2006, security personnel are, and should be, trained "to look for abnormal human behavior. ... That is in no way racial profiling. That is behavioral profiling."
The article shows the stupidity of such an act as ethnic and racial profiling, as valuable resources are squandered.
It is my "contention of 1" that Al Qaida and other terrorist groups are flying out all sorts of schemes just to throw the entire security apparatus into a tizzy. The more failed attempts, the better for them, as the stupid security analysts start chasing shadows rather than real targets.
That pResident Bush went about wire tapping and searching his entire US population (just to stay ahead of his political opponents) shows how this sort of behaviour by a meglomaniac has squandered the valuable resources of an intelligence community.
Obama has fallen into the same trap. In his recent speech he talked about the failure to connect dots. The reason is that with one million or a billion dots to connect, even with super fast computers, this is impossible. It is easy to see this in hindsight!
During my recent trip to India I passed through so many security checks - Helsinki, London, Mumbai, Cochin, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Delhi. Every single airport followed a different procedure. Every single airport failed to focus on the real problem - separating the real and honest traveller from the potential terrorist. Hence, 99.9% of the procedure was just a waste of valuable resources.
If I were a terrorist, one look at these illogical procedures would have given me 200 ways on how to beat the system. That is what Al Qaida and other terrorist organisations are focusing on.
The security analysts want to show us they are doing a great job (to get a greater allocation of financial resources and to show important they are), but all they are doing is following a set of useless procedures.
As one writer put it, soon we will be travelling on airplanes in the NUDE - but then they will need to do an internal body scan, so we will all be cut open before we get on the plane. Great news for surgeons!
Stupid? Well, that is how stupid the present procedures are, and everyone mutters,
"Oh, this is to keep US safe!" (No pun intended!)
We are no safer now than we were 25 years ago. In fact, every new procedure the security analysts introduce makes us less safe as it cuts out one more method the terrorists would have considered. They will concentrate on other more effective methods while sending the security analysts barking up the billion wrong trees!.
Labels: check, procedure, procedures, resources, security, terrrorism, waste
Forgive my scepticism
The latest move to demonise Yemen and Somali seems to have some undertones.
Is it that the US and British want to establish their military presence at the narrowest point into the Arabian Sea?
Sorry, but I do not trust their politicians one bit after they played the greatest lie of all about the Weapons of Mass destruction in Iraq. Killed millions without even a by your leave. And even cold blooded murderers from Blackwater can "walk" FREE on a legal technicality.
While others, especially women and cildren, are killed without any chance of even asking for a judicial process!
Do you trust that form of justice?
And there was Barack talking about peace when he is ratcheting up the war in Afghanistan. NOBEL PEACE PRIZE - THAT WAS A LAUGH!
Who is raising the spectre of war?
The Americans talk about an attack on their "homeland" when one man tries to attack them.
But when, they as a national policy, attack and kill innocent women and children in another nation with no trial, then those people must accept the justice meted out by the US meekly and are not allowed to retaliate?
God (which one - Kali) bless America but not those innocent victims?
Barrack appears to be a war monger. He needs war to keep the attention away from his failed politics in the Middle East and at home.
Barrack is certainly no Christian - just a fake one, like Bush, Blair and Brown with Blood on THEIR hands!
Labels: Barrack, blackwater, Blair Brown, Blood, Bush, destruction, Iraq, mass, Nobel, Peace, Prize, Somalia, terrorist, uemen, wespins
