Reports are that the border agents (namely, immigration and customs officials) who are supposed to stop terrorists from entering the UK to strike have themselves decided to strike … over pay and job security. Alas, this only reinforces the impression that a bunch of keystone cops are in charge of security preparations for the London Olympics.
In true British character, however, the agents were polite enough to announce yesterday that they will strike on August 26, the day before the Opening Ceremony. But even this timing seems like the calculation of keystone cops. After all, by then all Olympians will be firmly settled into the Olympic Village.
(Following this very accommodating logic, they will probably come to terms with the government the day before the Closing Ceremony – just in time for the rush of foreign Olympians and spectators out of the UK….)
It might seem a singularly stupid move for border agents, having seven days of peak travel to strike with maximum effect, to wait until the seventh day when their effect will be minimal. Until one remembers that British security firm G4S, having seven months to recruit and train guards to protect the Olympic venues, waited until seven days before the Opening Ceremony when it could only make a shambles of that recruitment and training, which it has done.
This brings me to the remark I made in my July 16 commentary about security preparations playing out like real-life episodes of Benny Hill. Because this latest episode featuring border agents, coupled with the threat by train drivers to mount a three-day strike right in the middle of the Games, only reinforces the impression that administrative bungling and chaos will be the order of the day – practically inviting terrorists to strike.
If this were happening in Brazil (the site of the 2016 Olympics), the reaction might well be, “What did you expect?” But England?! What a national shame!
Meanwhile, given the growing tension in the Middle East (and Syria is the least of it), leaders of all Western countries should be on notice. Because, with all of the obsessive focus on preventing terror strikes at the Olympics in London, rogue nations and terrorist organizations will consider this an ideal time to strike elsewhere.
I remember well, for example, how Russian president Vladimir Putin made quite a public show of attending the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics to deflect attention away from the order he had given back home for Russian tanks to invade neighboring Georgia.
On guard folks!
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