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Mort, are you really urging acceptance of the following?<br>
<br>
TSA Gestapo Empire<br>
Paul Craig Roberts<br>
Nov 23, 2010<br>
<br>
It doesn’t take a bureaucrat long to create an empire. John Pistole,
the FBI agent who took over the Transportation Security
Administration on July 1 told USA Today 16 days later that
protecting trains and subways from terrorist attacks will be as high
a priority for him as air travel. <br>
It is difficult to imagine New Yorkers being porno-screened and
sexually groped on crowed subway platforms or showing up an hour or
two in advance for clearance for a 15 minute subway ride, but once
bureaucrats get the bit in their teeth they take absurdity to its
logical conclusion. Buses will be next, although it is even more
difficult to imagine open air bus stops turned into security zones
with screeners and gropers inspecting passengers before they board.<br>
Will taxi passengers be next? In those Muslim lands whose citizens
the US government has been slaughtering for years, favorite weapons
for retaliating against the Americans are car and truck bombs. How
long before Pistole announces that the TSA Gestapo is setting up
roadblocks on city streets, highways and interstates to check cars
for bombs?<br>
That 15 minute trip to the grocery store then becomes an all day
affair.<br>
Indeed, it has already begun. Last September agents from Homeland
Security, TSA, and the US Department of Transportation, assisted by
the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, conducted a counter-terrorism
operation on busy Interstate 20 just west of Atlanta, Georgia.
Designated VIPER (Visible Inter-mobile Prevention and Response), the
operation required all trucks to stop to be screened for bombs.
Federal agents used dogs, screening devices, and a large
drive-through bomb detection machine. Imagine what the delays did to
delivery schedules and truckers’ bottom lines.<br>
There are also news reports of federal trucks equipped with
backscatter X-ray devices that secretly scan cars and pedestrians. <br>
With such expensive counter-terrorism activities, both in terms of
the hard-pressed taxpayers’ money and civil liberties, one would
think that bombs were going off all over America. But, of course,
they aren’t. There has not been a successful terrorist act since
9/11, and thousands of independent experts doubt the government’s
explanation of that event.<br>
Subsequent domestic terrorist events have turned out to be FBI sting
operations in which FBI agents organize not-so-bright disaffected
members of society and lead them into displaying interest in
participating in a terrorist act. Once the FBI agent, pretending to
be a terrorist, succeeds in prompting all the right words to be said
and captured on his hidden recorder, the “terrorists” are arrested
and the “plot” exposed.<br>
The very fact that the FBI has to orchestrate fake terrorism proves
the absence of real terrorists.<br>
If Americans were more thoughtful and less gullible, they might
wonder why all the emphasis on transportation when there are so many
soft targets. Shopping centers, for example. If there were enough
terrorists in America to justify the existence of Homeland Security,
bombs would be going off round the clock in shopping malls in every
state. The effect would be far more terrifying than blowing up an
airliner.<br>
Indeed, if terrorists want to attack air travelers, they never need
to board an airplane.<br>
All they need to do is to join the throngs of passengers waiting to
go through the TSA scanners and set off their bombs. The TSA has
conveniently assembled the targets.<br>
The final proof that there are no terrorists is that not a single
neoconservative or government official responsible for the Bush
regime’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Obama regime’s
slaughters of Pakistanis, Yemenis, and Somalians has been
assassinated. None of these Americans who are responsible for lies,
deceptions, and invasions that have destroyed the lives of countless
numbers of Muslims have any security protection. If Muslims were
capable of pulling off 9/11, they are certainly capable of
assassinating Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Libby, Condi Rice,
Kristol, Bolton, Goldberg, and scores of others during the same hour
of the same day. <br>
I am not advocating that terrorists assassinate anyone. I am just
making the point that if the US was as overrun with terrorists as
empire-building bureaucrats pretend, we would definitely be
experiencing dramatic terrorist acts. The argument is not believable
that a government that was incapable of preventing 9/11 is so
all-knowing that it can prevent assassination of unprotected neocons
and shopping malls from being bombed. <br>
If Al Qaeda was anything like the organization that the US
government claims, it would not be focused on trivial targets such
as passenger airliners. The organization, if it exists, would be
focused on its real enemies. Try to imagine the propaganda value of
terrorists wiping out the neoconservatives in one fell swoop,
followed by an announcement that every member of the federal
government down to the lowest GS, every member of the House and
Senate, and every governor was next in line to be bumped off.<br>
This would be real terrorism instead of the make-belief stuff
associated with shoe bombs that don’t work, underwear bombs that
independent experts say could not work, and bottled water and
shampoo bombs that experts say cannot possibly be put together in
airliner lavatories. <br>
Think about it. Would a terror organization capable of outwitting
all 16 US intelligence agencies, all intelligence agencies of US
allies including Israel’s Mossad, the National Security Council,
NORAD, air traffic control, the Pentagon, and airport security four
times in one hour put its unrivaled prestige at risk with improbable
shoe bombs, shampoo bombs, and underwear bombs? <br>
After success in destroying the World Trade Center and blowing up
part of the Pentagon, it is an extraordinary comedown to go after a
mere airliner. Would a person who gains fame by knocking out the
world heavyweight boxing champion make himself a laughing stock by
taking lunch money from school boys?<br>
TSA is a far greater threat to Americans than are terrorists.
Pistole has given the finger to US senators and representatives,
state legislators, and the traveling public who have expressed their
views that virtual strip searches and sexual molestation are too
high a price to pay for “security.” Indeed, the TSA with its
Gestapo attitude and methods, is succeeding in making Americans more
terrified of the TSA than they are of terrorists. <br>
Make up your own mind. What terrifies you the most. Terrorists,
who in all likelihood you will never encounter in your lifetime, or
the TSA that you will encounter every time you fly and soon,
according to Pistole, every time you take a train, a subway, or
drive in a car or truck? <br>
Before making up your mind, consider this report from antiwar.com on
November 19: “TSA officials say that anyone refusing both the full
body scanners and the enhanced pat down procedures will be taken
into custody. Once there the detainees will not only be barred from
flying, but will be held indefinitely as suspected terrorists . . .
One sheriff’s office said they were already preparing to handle a
large number of detainees and plan to treat them as terror
suspects.” <br>
Who is cowing Americans into submission, terrorists or the TSA
Gestapo?<br>
——————<br>
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former
head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and
was previously an editor for the Wall Street Journal. His latest
book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why
America is disintegrating.<br>
<br>
<br>
On 11/23/10 11:34 PM, Brussel Morton K. wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:E91342B6-6927-456C-AA1A-677875B7871D@comcast.net"
type="cite">Estabrook and Johnson are clearly not travelling by
airplane this weekend.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Castigating the ACLU (which, perhaps not incidentally,
supports a woman's right to choose whether to continue a
pregnancy) for telling people what they can legally do and
expect is abject, but to be expected from this quarter. I
suppose they would spit in the eyes of the TSA types if they
were trying to board a plane. Easy to be brave from the far
sidelines.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--mkb</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<div>
<div>On Nov 23, 2010, at 10:02 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Count on good
liberals to knuckle under and advise acquiescence when the
government says it's serious.<br>
<br>
People who urge serious opposition are excoriated with
stupid phrases like "Planet Wingnut."<br>
<br>
With advice like this, it's hardly surprising that
Americans can't muster the sort of opposition that we see
in France, Germany, or even the UK. <br>
<br>
On 11/23/10 7:03 PM, Robert Naiman wrote:<br>
<span style="white-space: pre;">> Advising people what
their<br>
legal rights are does not equal telling <br>
<br>
> them to submit, except on Planet Wingnut.<br>
<br>
> <br>
<br>
> On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 6:49 PM, E. Wayne Johnson<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:ewj@pigs.ag"><ewj@pigs.ag></a><br>
<br>
> wrote:<br>
<br>
>> The Orwellian lock-step Democrats seem to be
offering a<br>
united<br>
<br>
>> front of pathetic submission to the Invasion of
the Body<br>
Snatchers<br>
<br>
>> at TSA.<br>
<br>
>> <br>
<br>
>> Even the generally sassy FireDogLake is
advising people<br>
to submit.<br>
<br>
>> <br>
<br>
>> Jane Hamster is offering not the 4th amendment:
The right<br>
of the<br>
<br>
>> people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and<br>
effects,<br>
<br>
>> against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be<br>
violated, <br>
<br>
>> and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause,<br>
supported by<br>
<br>
>> Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the<br>
place to be<br>
<br>
>> searched, and the persons or things to be
seized.<br>
<br>
>> <br>
<br>
>> FDL is advising people to "Know your Rights"
(in other<br>
words, No<br>
<br>
>> Rights)<br>
<br>
>> <br>
<br>
>><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://static1.firedoglake.com/1/files/2010/11/KnowYourRights-full.jpg">http://static1.firedoglake.com/1/files/2010/11/KnowYourRights-full.jpg</a><br>
<br>
>><br>
<br>
>><br>
<br>
>> </span>Bless their cowardly little hearts.
May their chains rest lightly upon<br>
<span style="white-space: pre;">>> them.<br>
<br>
>> <br>
<br>
>> <br>
<br>
>> My take on this matter is that any response to
TSA that<br>
is milder<br>
<br>
>> than at minimum a very polite "Fuck You! You're
not going<br>
to do<br>
<br>
>> it!" is an egregious and embarrassing
surrender.<br>
<br>
>> <br>
<br>
>> Wayne Johnson<br>
<br>
</span><br>
</div>
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