Today's Chi. Sun-Times:
Snip:
After the remembrances of the World Trade Center disaster this week, it is proper to ask whether you're safer than you were two years ago. Any sensible response would say that, despite the much-publicized war on terrorism, you're not much safer and maybe a little less safe. A major improvement is that there is now a bulletproof metal door protecting each cockpit on American planes. That protection was first suggested by the Gore Commission in 1996. The airline industry, fearful of the extra expense, persuaded Congress to reject the recommendation. If the four planes taken over by the terrorists two years ago had such doors, all the people killed in the World Trade Center explosions would still be alive. For reasons that escape me, the media have been reluctant to blame the airlines and Congress for their folly.
The security farce at the nation's airports succeeds only in persuading the public that they are safe when they board an airplane. If you harass and insult enough people, everyone will feel safer in the air. It's a shell game, a card trick. You are not safe from heat-seeking missiles fired from the ground, nor from bombs in baggage and mail and express parcels that have not been screened. Nor has there been enough screening of planes from other countries. Thus, if a Canadian plane is off course and headed for an important target, will the government scramble jets to shoot it down? Or a French or a German plane?
Ground missiles could be deflected by protective systems used by the Air Force, but such protection, proposed in a bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), would cost $10 billion -- money that Congress and the administration doubtless feel could be more wisely used in the Iraq sinkhole. Finally, destructive weapons could be smuggled in on ships or in railroad trains or even on riverboat barges.
The government has therefore done very little to deal with the threat of international terrorism other than to insist on those metal doors on airplane cockpits. The rest has been spin. The country is not safer now than it was two years ago, despite all the money that has been spent. National security ought to be a major issue in the next election. The claim of the Bush administration that it has dealt effectively with the threat ought to be exposed to the full light of day, where the spin doctors can no longer hide the truth.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel12.html
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