I have to admit that it mystifies me why the 109th Congress couldn’t tackle the port and air cargo screening issue.
House easily passes anti-terror bill – USA Today
Anti-terror legislation sailed through the House on Tuesday, the first in a string of measures designed to fulfill campaign promises made by Democrats last fall.
Patterned on recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, the far-reaching measure includes commitments for inspection of all cargo carried aboard passenger aircraft and on ships bound for the United States.
The vote was a bipartisan 299-128.
But in any case, the vote was somewhat bi-partisan (not nearly as much as the media reports suggest). Full US House roll call vote here.
By my math, 100% of the Democrat House Members voting today were in favor of HR1, while the Republican House Caucus was split 35% for and 65% against.
It will be interesting to see if those 68 Republican House Members (many of which I see are GOP moderates) are going to be a group that hangs together and votes with the Democrats. Or if this was just a one-time deal because it was a security-related issue.
As with everything Speaker Pelosi’s gang pushes through, this legislation must be approved by the US Senate and avoid the President’s so-far non-existent veto pen before it becomes law.
**UPDATE** — US Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) from the neighboring 10th District west of Charlotte blogs his comments on HR 1 at RedState.com.
By neglecting the normal legislative process – including the thoughtful deliberation of Republican and Democratic Members of Congress – Speaker Pelosi virtually guarantees catastrophic mistakes will be made. Some of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, like declassifying the annual intelligence budget, are unwise, if not altogether dangerous.
Today, Democrats are so preoccupied with whether they can pass the 9/11 Commission legislation – that they never stopped to think whether they should.
That’s because the Democrats see World War III and as a mere law enforcement action and security of our nation as a minor nuisance in their larger agenda.
Here are some of the comments from those who voted no:
-“This bill will waste billions of dollars, and possibly harm homeland security by gumming up progress already underway,” said Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky.-
-Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., noted disapprovingly that screeners at the Transportation Security Agency would receive collective bargaining rights under the bill.-
-And Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the measure “gives false hope to the American people” because technology for scanning all cargo containers is not yet available.-
I’m still a bit baffled by that “false hope” line.
It’s nice to know that Republicans in Congress felt there was ample reason to vote on gay marriage, flag-burning, and Terri Schiavo, but feel a terrorism bill is a waste of time.
Is it true that the President opposes this bill and may veto?
My favorite part is listening to the rightwing (check out red state for near-poetic wailing and gnashing of teeth) as to how the mean, bad Democrats are doing… the same thing to Republicans that the Republicans did to the Democrats when they took over Congress last. “They won’t let us in!” “They won’t let us talk!” Well, I don’t approve of it, but since the country just voted to switch sides, I think that now, as in 2004 and previously, that “elections have consequences.”
I’d like to ask Rep McHenry (and Bruce, maybe), is it your contention that Today, Democrats are so preoccupied with whether they can pass the 9/11 Commission legislation – that they never stopped to think whether they should. applies to the port security bill? The Republicans who claim to be willing to do anything to protect this country let this particular issue lie for years, presumably in favor of the business interests who opposed the fees necessary to adequately protect and secure cargo. Why should we wring our hands over the exclusion of Republican contribution to the debate when it was their majority that refused to actually pass (or even debate?) this particular 9/11 idea in the first place!
I thought there was a port security bill passed last November or December. You know, the one that allows convicted fellons but not DPW to work at the ports?
the same thing to Republicans that the Republicans did to the Democrats when they took over Congress last.
Which is exactly the same crap the liberals did for decades when they held absolute power. What you’re saying is that Pelosi et al were essentially lying when they called for bi-partisanship, working together etc. Just like they blew it on the promise to work a full week.
The Republicans who claim to be willing to do anything to protect this country let this particular issue lie for years, presumably in favor of the business interests who opposed the fees necessary to adequately protect and secure cargo.
Fees, no. Time, yes.
Cargo ships carry upwards of 2,000 containers on average. If it takes five minutes to fully scan and secure a container, an entire shipload of that size would take 10,000 minutes — almost a full week of 24-hour nonstop scanning.
The current average turnaround time for cargo ships at each port is three to four days. You’re now going to nearly double that.
If leftist Democrats were actually concerned about port security, they would be cracking down on felons and organized crime that is rampant among port workers – which is important, given that they are the ones loading, storing, and checking these containers both before AND after scanning. But that would mean cracking down on the unions, and Democrats receive far too much in kickbacks from them to do anything of the sort.
So instead of attacking the real and obvious problem, they snarl the supply chain.
Brilliant.
TGC: On the work week meme: I know Drudge ran with it for awhile, but you do know the whole story, yes? The Republicans asked for the day off! lol
I don’t defend, not for a second, leaving out the minority in Congress. What I am saying is that I have precious little sympathy for the GOP in this case, so fresh off of living under the rules they proposed themselves. I’ll have to dig for a link, but the Republicans did not merely continue the then pro-Dem rules when they took over in 94. They changed the rules, even further, to marginalize the minority, changed voting rules and times, etc. So they did raise (or lower) the bar on giving the minority the shaft; now they have some time under the same rules.
ND30: So we need to enhance the background checks of the people working at the ports. No arguments with you there, and no arguments on exactly how beholden the Dems are to the unions.
But you never actually explained how having more morally upstanding dock workers will in fact get the cargo checked at all, if no rules call for it. Your math claims that scanning time will require X amount of more time; how would non-union workers solve that problem? Won’t the time it takes still be the time it takes? Boiled down: Right now, they don’t scan the cargo sufficiently; how will changing the workers make the scanning time shorter? You seem to have lept subjects, or at least elided them.
Lastly, assuming your math is true, you say scanning time will double for a ship. God knows all of our airport travel time has doubled, at the least, in getting through security and other parts of personal airline travel. Wouldn’t, again, the security of the nation require some adjustments to border-crossing processes by cargo as well as people? I’m not sure why if 3.5-oz bottles of shaving cream are a threat to national security, then a cargo container the size of a double-wide doesn’t need to be scanned as well.
“I have to admit that it mystifies me why the 109th Congress couldn’t tackle the port and air cargo screening issue.”
Therein lies a big difference between democrats and republicans: On the whole, Democrats will put the well-being of the citizens of this country first, whereas Republicans on the whole will consider lost profits first.
100% screening of cargo really is a terrible idea. I’ve studied the issue in some detail professionally. The logistics involved with inspecting cargo would make the “just-in-time” delivery of manufacturing parts almost impossible, since there is no way of knowing when a given shipment will be inspected. (Inspectors will tend to be unionized employees, often unionized public employees, who don’t give a damn about schedules, unless it’s the schedule for their mandatory hourly one-hour break.)
The only cargo that needs to be inspected is 2-3% that has not come from a reliable source or point of origin, or has errors in the paperwork, or has something else suspicious about it. For example, a cargo shipment from a Toyota plant in Nagoya to a Toyota plant in Tennessee is very unlikely to be a threat, and delaying it for days while it’s inspected just adds inefficiency to the manufacturing process. On the other hand, a cargo container that’s coming from Yemen and according to its manifest contains “genuine French wine” probably should be inspected, especially if it’s ticking.
Inspecting 100% of cargo is a waste of time and resources. But wasting time and resources is what Government does best.
Meanwhile, while Democrats are gumming up the transportation system with unnecessary bureaucracy, they’re leaving the borders wide open, and refusing to provide funding to make them secure.
VdaK nails it again with his differential analysis of the much higher value in discrete anti-terrorist measures vs. the Democrats 10 yr obstruction of meaningful immigration reform and border security.
NancyP misses the boat while grandstanding on anti-terrorism now in advance of her own brand of pro-terrorist policy later in the week: cut & run from the WOT, no new troops, concede Iraq to the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists bent on destroying the West.
Good post Bruce. On the issue of GOP moderates voting Yea, I don’t know. For the Michigan GOPers voting to support HR1, none of them could be marked as “moderates” even by a rusting ancient Reaganaught… Ted McCotter has pearl handle revolvers shining in his eyes, Candi Miller knows port security well as a former boatyard owner and Mi Secy of State, Dave Camp is about the only anti-tax, pro-growth on House Approps and Mike Rogers is former FBI and Army Intell and a Reagan-inspired conservative. Maybe they’re the exceptions of GOPers voting for a meaningless but politically useful 9-11 “bloody shirt”?
#6 torrentprimed and ready, your source is RawStory?? RawStory??
If you actually read your source, you’d know the RawStory spin doesn’t have a smoking gun to support your supposition it was the GOP. Did the OSU Rep ask for it off? No. Did the Florida Gator Rep ask for it off? No. Did Boehner’s ask for it off? No. Did Steny Hoyer schedule it off? Yes.
Torrent “primed” but not ready, eh?
What next, a wiki cite to prove that NancyP is sincere about ethics reform? LOL
On the plus side, maybe 100% port inspections will help with the trade deficit, if industry can no longer rely upon on-time delivery of foreign parts.
Or, maybe the Chinese and other foreigners will just build plants in Mexico, or use Mexican and Canadian ports instead and ship it through the open borders instead of going through American seaports.
V The K –
Even if 100% screening is prohibative in terms of time, any additional screening would be helpful. The overall goal is security, after all, and it cannot be looked upon as a bad thing to try and detect bombs and foul substances on their way in.
If it takes 5 minutes to screen now, then in just 5-10 years it will take 1. Power of the free market. Better to get people started on the problem now then to just throw up our hands because it seems insurmountable.
I imagine you guys would have been death on the space program…
But you never actually explained how having more morally upstanding dock workers will in fact get the cargo checked at all, if no rules call for it.
Torrent, you just hit on the problem; Democrats are spreading the lie that cargo is now not checked at all.
In point of fact, DHS, especially the Coast Guard, and shipping companies have put in place safeguards that thoroughly check from where a container comes, what’s in it, who put it in there, where it’s been since, and whether it was tampered with in the process of getting it there. Containers entering or clearing US ports and most foreign ports are scrupulously examined. When I used to work for a shipping company, if we didn’t know with certainty whether or not something was legit, it got taken off and removed — or usually, never made it into the port in the first place. Furthermore, containers are randomly opened and inspected by the Coast Guard, and virtually all containers that come anywhere near US ships are tested for radiological contamination (much easier, since radiation sensors are passive).
Again, Democrats are manipulating the fact that their electorate is, on average, far less informed and far less business-savvy. They insist that shipping companies don’t want to scan cargo, when in fact that would be a catastrophically-foolish decision; do they think shipping companies would risk carrying anything that might sink a ship worth tens of millions of dollars, or destroy port facilities that cost them even more? Furthermore, they insist you can X-ray containers that are, as you put it, “the size of a doublewide”, because we can X-ray at airports – which carries exactly zero logic.
The big, gaping hole in the system is the fact that containers are most vulnerable when they are being trucked from the pickup location to the port, or in the gap in which they are in the container yard, waiting to be loaded. Leftist Democrats would shit bricks if airline baggage handlers, gate agents, or TSA screeners who had access to aircraft and gate areas were allowed to handle these things without thorough background checks — but they seem to have nothing to say about port workers.
That is because port workers are unionized, and unions control Democrats. You wouldn’t have to change the workers, only enforce the rules; however, that would break the back of several unions and cut off the Dems’ kickbacks, and they’re having nothing of it. Worse, they’re now trying to extend the corrupt unions’ finger holds into air travel. Do you really want TSA screeners to belong to an organization in which organized crime is endemic?
#13: So, basically, cyclops supports billions of dollars in unnecessary expenditures and lost time that add nothing to security because in ten or so years, the technology will be available to perform useless, unnecessary inspections much faster.
If terrorists wanted to get a weapon into the US in a cargo container, they could just drive it across the southern border. The Democrats have no interest in stopping anything from crossing that.
The cargo inspection deal is just a useless multi-billion dollar exercise to dupe the uninformed into thinking “something is being done.” (Most of what the TSA does is the same.) But, hey, the Nuts won the election, they have the right to do that. And I have the right to expose it for the stinking pile of crap that it is.
15 –
I don’t think the inspections are useless or unneccessary. I think that if you are serious about defending the country from attack using WMD, the inspections are neccessary.
Now, the fact that we will be unable to get 100% of the cargo inspected doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing to try to do so. We can work on improving speed and efficiencies as we go along; but it is important to create the mindset that defense is a serious thing.
I a a Democrat who wants to see the borders closed, btw. Neither party is monolithic on this issue. I agree that there is no point in securing ports without doing the same for borders; however, we should be doing both, not neither.
I would like to add that this isn’t just the Dems’ promoting greater port security. If Bush signs the bill, the Republicans carry at least equal weight for its’ passage.
Now, the fact that we will be unable to get 100% of the cargo inspected doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing to try to do so.
Actually, my point was just the opposite. 100% cargo inspection is a bad thing to do, a waste of time and effort, since 99% of cargo is already inspected at the point of origin. Another inspection just adds a layer of useless, expensive bureaucracy.
I write this as someone who spent the better part of 2006 conducting an analysis of Port Security as part of my job.
Learn to read.
Seriously, physically inspecting every cargo container that enters the US makes about as much sense as strip searching every airline passenger who boards or exits a plane into the US. But, presumably, anyone who opposes strip-searching airline passengers is a heartless jerk who puts cost ahead of doing everything possible to protect public safety.
Kind of a little premature to speak about the President signing a bill that has yet to go through the Senate’s lengthy consideration… then a conference committee. HR1 (which is not “Happy Rhetoric 1”) is here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:2:./temp/~c110BKNqCP::
I particularly like the parts of the bill which speak to
1) creating an appeal process for people wrongly denied boarding on airplanes;
2) creating a border intelligence fusion program to link natl intell with local law enforcement officials;
3) a new office of “Infrastructure Protection” –like we don’t have enough offices even now;
4) protecting the civil liberties of privacy of Americans while spying on terrorists (with yet another Office and Board);
5) creating a commission on WMDs and their proliferation; creating an Arab Youth Opportunity Fund; and
6) expanding scholarship opportunities for Muslim and Arab youth in the Middle East, SE Asia and Africa.
Gotta love those Democrats and the MSM hacks who reduce all that “big thinking” and waste to “Improving Port Security”.
Gee, Matt, all that bill lacks is a provision requiring that any Border Patrol agent who stops an illegal immigrant from entering the US be sentenced to a mandatory 20 years in prison.
Perhaps McCain or Kennedy will add such a provision in the Senate version. It would almost guarantee Bush would sign it.
On second thought, it probably lack some other things, too. Have you heard about the phony Senate earmark reform bill? The one being crafted by Harry gReid and Mitch McConnell would exempt 95% of earmarks from the transparency requirements.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…
VdaK, I think it makes good sense to support not just 100% inspection of ALL container cargo that comes from port shipping, but it should be 200% inspection… inspect it once in the native country (who will, of course, allow us to place inspectors at their docks because TeddyK and LurchKerry will ask ’em for us and those guys are like, wow, connected with foreign leaders and stuff) and then again when it gets to the US.
We also ought to check 200% all the airline cargo… including UPS and FedEx and the 2-3 packages/yr the USPostal Service still transports.
And we ought to check 200% all the train cargo –even the ones that come containerized from the ships. That way we can check containers at least 4 times in those cases. The goal is redunancy to an excess and meaningless gestures to assuage the public… let’s do it grandly. Hell, maybe we can not only sell off port operations to foreign companies, we can move the entire operation to a foreign country and get out of having ports. I think they are ugly. I think they should be waterfront parks. And the same goes for domestic naval bases –ugly. Let’s get rid of all of them and call it “Port Security”.
Meanwhile, let’s continue to ship highly toxic nuclear waste across state lines because the enviro terrorists in nearly every state but Nevada want the waste exported to Nevada. Doesn’t that make sense?
I like the Harry gRied (greed) tag. Perfect. The Bridge to Harry’s Pocketbook has replaced the Bridge to Nowhere.
V the K –
Learn to read.
Why don’t you learn not to be such a jerk? I read what you wrote just fine; I don’t agree with it.
If you think that having foreign inspectors inspect cargo, and having it arrive at America with no guarantee that what it says is inside it, actually is inside it, is allright, then you are not serious about port security, sorry. I am unswayed by both your supposed real-life experience and your attitude that the profits of businesses are more important that the safety of American citizens.
19 –
1) creating an appeal process for people wrongly denied boarding on airplanes;
2) creating a border intelligence fusion program to link natl intell with local law enforcement officials;
You have a problem with these two things?
If you personally were never allowed to board a plane here in America again, you don’t want there to be a process to get your name off of the list?
Michigan-Matt: So you’re not saying it’s not true, you’re just saying you don’t like the source. Check out technorati for other references.
And yes, it was Boehner. You don’t have to believe it, if it makes you feel good that no one can prove the Democrats tried to be nice and got scre–messed with, but that’s your choice, not reality.
V the K,
Thanks for the detailed explanation on shipping and inspecting. It’s good to hear that current processes make an effort to inspect cargo. My only objection to your discussion is that it means we are essentially trusting individual companies to decide how much to inspect, and when, and for what cause. I revere the power of the free market, but historically companies /corporations do not always see past business considerations, and national security is a bit out of corporate scope. Do we trust that each company is right now doing everything it needs to? If 100% screening is not the answer, then maybe something less is, but I don’t see the harm in applying some type of federal standard. If 100% screening is inefficient or ven harmful, then I would agree that it goes too far. A shame the Republicans didn’t address this a few years ago when they had the majority.
When people obtusely distort my points, yeah, I can be a real jerk. I’ve made a fact and logic-based argument that port inspections will not enhance anyone’s security. And all I get from the other side is, “it will make us feel more secure,” with zero evidence or logic to support that.
Michigan Matt is wrong, all cargo should be quadruple-inspected. It should be inspected at the port of origin, it should be inspected when it enters a port facility, when it leaves a port facility, and when it arrives at its destination. Maybe it should be inspected five or six times. And anyone who opposes the sextuple inspection of all cargo obviously is putting the profits of businesses ahead of the safety of American citizens.
I don’t suppose the “let’s do useless expensive things because they give us an illusion of security” folks have ever heard of a thing called a cost-benefit analysis. Not to mention that every dollar spent on the waste of time of inspecting known cargo shipped from reliable, known foreign parts is a dollar that isn’t spent plugging real holes in our national security, like our wide open borders.
When the terrorists bring WMD into the US, it’s not going to be through the ports. Spending billions on port security while neglecting the borders is like building a hugely expensive alarm system for your garage, then leaving your front and back doors wide open, and furthermore going around in bad neighborhoods leaving out fliers with your address on them telling how much valuable stuff is in your house.
(Inspectors will tend to be unionized employees, often unionized public employees, who don’t give a damn about schedules, unless it’s the schedule for their mandatory hourly one-hour break.)
Not only that, taking longer will benefit them as union employees, because they can get time and a half for any overtime needed to inspect those containers.
In general, VtheK seems to have this one right, inspecting every single container seems like a monumental waste of time.
Random inspections of containers, and inspections of anything that is suspicious sounds like it would be more cost effective.
But then airports still pull little old ladies in wheel chairs for extra screeening, which also seems like a monumental waste of time.
I read what you wrote just fine; I don’t agree with it.
Evidently not if you’re still making lame inaccurate statements like “your attitude that the profits of businesses are more important that the safety of American citizens.”
My case is that 100% cargo inspections do not enhance national security. When the terrorists bring WMD to the US, it’s not going to be through the ports. And it sure the hell isn’t going to come in a container of beanie babies shipped from a controlled port in Hong Kong in a sealed container and unsealed at a shipping center somewhere in the midwest, that’s been tracked from the factory to the port and at every step in between.
Spending billions on port security while neglecting the open borders is like buying a hugely expensive security system for your garage, then leaving your front and back door wide open, and furthermore, going around to bad neighborhoods with fliers giving directions to your house and telling which rooms have the good stuff.
The policy is just an expensive exercise in feelgoodism. There is such a thing called a cost-benefit analysis. Given finite resources, it’s better to spend money on actions that will actually enhance security, as opposed to useless feelgood exercises. But if one thinks, as one evidently does, that no cost is too high for absolute security, one should absolutely support Matt’s plan for double, triple, or quadruple inspections. And anyone who thinks his plan is ridiculous can be smeared as someone who puts the profits of business ahead of the security of citizens.
In general, VtheK seems to have this one right,
Thanks. 🙂 As I said, I spent a great deal of time studying the port security issue and concluded that it is more cost-effective to track and verify cargo than it is to inspect every container. If you limit inspections to containers that have logistical discrepancies, come from ports of concern, or have other red flags, that is a far more effective approach.
If you limit inspections to containers that have logistical discrepancies, come from ports of concern, or have other red flags, that is a far more effective approach.
So, if you were a potential terrorist, wouldn’t you insert your package into a cargo which was inspected by your ‘friends’ at the plant in Pakistan where the beanie babies are made, knowing that the lack of logistical dispcrepancies and other assurances mean your container won’t be searched? Wouldn’t you stick to cargo with no ‘red flags?’
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that our enemies are stupid or unresourceful, for they are neither. Better to plan the other way around.
I understand that 100% efficeincies are impossible to obtain in any endeavor. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make things more secure than they currently are. Your example of buying a garage security system and then leaving all the doors open works the other way, as well; the lesson isn’t that the system for the garage is a bad idea, the lesson is that security has to be improved all around to be effective, and in the case of the US that includes port security.
When the terrorists bring WMD to the US, it’s not going to be through the ports.
Unless they are, that is.
VdaK writes: “But if one thinks, as one evidently does, that no cost is too high for absolute security, one should absolutely support Matt’s plan for double, triple, or quadruple inspections. And anyone who thinks his plan is ridiculous can be smeared as someone who puts the profits of business ahead of the security of citizens.”
And we should call ’em an Obstructionists too for thwarting the 9-11 Commission –maybe we could have the 9-11 Democrat Widows’ Club put down the tea sandwiches, slap on the public grief facepaint again and rail against the GOP in order to get “Port Security” finally put into place. Anything to be able to keep the public centered on their sell-able grief –even if its being a tool of House Democrats.
Damn it, if it was so frickin easy, the 109th would have done it already. The House Democrats are doing some heavy lifting in a light 4 day work week.
I bet if VdaK had his way, he’d have the House Democrats just go home, play ostrich and leave the government to the professionals.
BTW, it’s hard to focus on port security when the Bush Administration is bumping off al Qaeda leaders all over the world. What’s with that? When did the WOT shift back to reality and away from meaningless gestures by political grandstanders?
The example in #26 would generate at least two red flags, the cargo would be originating in a country known to harbor terrorists, and originating in a specific area known to harbor terrorists. Potentially, there would also be intelligence from the country of origin suggesting the possibility that terrorists were attempting to add into cargo. Additional red flags would be generated if the cargo was not properly inspected at the port of origin or if its seals had been tampered with. Any of these would single it out for additional scrutiny. Which would be far more effective than inspecting 100,000 containers of Japanese auto parts, that originated in a country with little or no Islamic terrorism, and which has a tightly controlled and highly reliable system of port inspection and cargo tracking, all of which arrive with seals intact and compliant tracking data on ships crewed exclusively by documented Japanese nationals.
In many cases, the crews are more dangerous than the cargo. It would be relatively easy for a terrorist to board a ship with forged identity papers and jump the ship in a US port. Cargo inspections do nothing about that scenario.
I just have a general opposition to waste and foolishness
I bet if VdaK had his way, he’d have the House Democrats just go home, play ostrich and leave the government to the professionals.
I think the country would be better off with 435 random citizens in Congress than 435 professional politicians.
BTW, the US already has its own, American inspectors and agents posted in foreign ports, so we don’t have to rely on the heathen furrunners Cyclo is so afraid of.
Hard to have it both ways. We can’t consider this to be both a perspective-changing, global struggle of civilizations that defines our time AND nothing to worry about simultaneously. Both can’t be true, and I’ve heard Conservative after Republican after another talk about the deadly life-or-death nature of our struggle.
It seems to me that since the Dems are in control now, it is a combination of easy and fun for Republicans to criticize them and point to them as fools; but they are being criticized for trying to do something about security, at least, as opposed to the Republican plan of doing nothing about it. Criticized by Matt for a four-day work week, but that’s almost twice what they had before when the other team ran the show. Where was the criticism then? My guess is, not on Conservative blogs.
When it comes to goods shipped into the US, there is one way to effectively keep cargo containers from hiding dangerous WMD and one way only, and that’s to have an inspection process here in America that is very robust. We don’t have to check 100% of cargo – there can be algorithms and formulas used for deciding which cargo needs greater inspection, based on a wide variety of factors, of course – but we need to be doing more than we currently are now, sheesh.
Same thing goes for the border! We don’t have to stop each and every illegal from coming over, just more than now…
BTW, how do we know a port inspector, particularly if he’s just the lunkhead nephew of the local mafia/union boss, is even going to recognize a WMD if he sees it? Do people think that it will have “WMD” stenciled in the side, or some red LED display counting down on the side like in the movies?
I’m a nuts and bolts kind of guy. I like practical solutions that actually work in the real world. As a result, I agree with most experts in the field who believe that the benefit of 100% physical cargo inspection is negligible, and that a data-centric approach would be far more effective.
It seems odd to me that the Donks will spend billions on marginally effective anti-terrorism strategies while simultaneously undermining efforts to gather intelligence on terrorists through surveillance and interrogation.
And in the big picture, one of the reasons terrorism persists is because terrorism works. It’s paradoxical that the West spends billions to prevent terrorism, but rewards the terrorists by ceding them their goals. The Palestinians routinely achieve their goals through terrorism and are rewarded with millions in foreign aid. Yasser Arafat received a Nobel Peace Prize and died a billionaire. Al Qaeda’s terrorism in Spain was rewarded with the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq and the installation of a terrorist-friendly socialist government.
It seems paradoxical to reward terrorism while combatting it. Like yelling at your dog when you find pee on the couch, but giving him a Liv-A-Snap when you catch him in the act.
Did I say paradoxical? I meant idiotic.