Instead of turning their cities into Orwellian fortresses, government officials should be recruiting individuals to infiltrate these terrorist organizations and using any means necessary to disabuse would-be terrorists of their jihadist ambitions. After all, no country has been on a more heightened terror alert since 9/11 than the United Kingdom. Yet, despite its labyrinth of security measures – including surveillance cameras on every street and at every underground station – terrorists still managed to attack in the heart of London on 7/7.
(“This Whole War on Terrorism Is a Big Joke,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 23, 2005)
Alas, it appears the British have learned nothing. In fact, based on their security preparations for the London Olympics, you’d think it was the German Luftwaffe instead of a few suicide bombers who attacked them on 7/7. This notwithstanding that, if there were terrorist attacks, everybody knows they would be far more likely in the form of the latter than the former.
What then is the point of commandeering people’s homes all over London to deploy batteries of anti-aircraft missiles on rooftops; of flooding the River Thames with battleships and gunboats of every type; or, for that matter, of festooning Olympic venues with robocops brandishing guns more designed to take out Sherman tanks than Islamic terrorists?
I am on record conceding that no array of security measures and military arsenal can prevent determined and skilled suicide bombers from carrying out their missions. I am all too mindful, for instance, that it was dumb luck – not high-tech security or law-enforcement personnel – that thwarted the notorious underwear and shoe bombers. Freaked-out passengers saved the day (and themselves) in each case.
Honestly, the only wonder is that terrorist masterminds have not dispatched more suicide bombers to places like Paris, London, and New York City instead of limiting their theatre of operations to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. But I suspect they will … in due course.
In the meantime, we are being treated to the spectacle of British officials aping what officials have been doing in every major Western country since 9/11; namely, treating every major event as if it were a military exercise. And this, in part, is how they justify spending untold billions on arms for the military instead of mere millions on alms for the poor….
But this spectacle is made farcical by reports on Friday that G4S, the private security firm British officials hired to provide security at Olympic venues, failed to recruit enough personnel and is not even sure those recruited actually speak English. It’s one thing to be greeted at a store in Miami by people speaking Spanish only. It’s quite another to be greeted at an Olympic venue in London by people speaking only … Arabic (or Urdu): the fox guarding the chicken coop?
Not to mention reports that this firm has provided such substandard training to all 10,000-plus recruits that many of them can’t even spot fake bombs, hand grenades, or even hand guns in plain sight on X-ray machines; or late-breaking reports about terror suspects making it through border control at Heathrow Airport because the British government itself hired inexperienced agents in a mad rush to quell daily bedlam over interminable lines that were making the UK look like a banana republic.
(If one didn’t know better, one could be forgiven for thinking that security operations for these Olympics are playing out like a skit from an old episode of Benny Hill.)
In any case, the government has now been forced to call up over 3,500 troops to help man security posts:
I suspect a number of senior officers who, with their teams, have worked very hard preparing for the Olympics will feel very disappointed at being let down at such a late stage by a private security firm.
(Retired Met chief superintendent Kevin Hurley, Daily Mail, July 13, 2012)
Nevertheless, the fear remains that while British troops are on rooftops looking to fire at phantom terrorist jets, and British marines are in the Thames looking to defuse phantom mines, al-Qaeda sympathizers could be at security checkpoints ensuring the entry of suicide bombers into targeted venues to create murder and mayhem that would make 7/7 seem like just a drive-by shooting.
Mind you, instead of turning London into an Orwellian fortress on the one hand and renting mentally-challenged security guards on the other, all British officials had to do was plan to blanket every nook and cranny of the city with trained police officers (aka bobbies) backed up by military troops, and order them to stop and frisk anyone who looks suspicious. And we all know what type of person would/should arouse reasonable suspicion in this context. So if you look Middle Eastern, North African, or Pakistani and are stupid enough to board a bus or train during the Olympic Games wearing a backpack (or even a raincoat no matter how cold and wet the weather) then you should expect to be stopped and frisked quite thoroughly.
No doubt this kind of racial profiling is politically incorrect. But does anyone doubt that if there were terrorist attacks they would be perpetrated by dark-skinned Islamists?
What’s more we now know that British officials will need more bobbies on the beat than anticipated because, like the private security firm, the private IT firm they hired admitted just yesterday that its highly touted supercomputer to track terror suspects will not be ready in time for the Games.
Meanwhile, perhaps to telegraph their zero-tolerance approach to law enforcement for this occasion, British officials pulled the plug on Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney in mid-song last night after their concert went beyond the 10:30 pm curfew, stranding them on stage looking like a senile, Marcel-Marceau miming act.
This potentially tragic comedy of errors is what the British have to show for billions spent in a Sisyphean effort to prevent terrorists from attacking during thes Olympic Games. Osama bin Laden must be rolling over in his grave … with laughter.
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War on terrorism is a big joke
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Sunday. at 12:24 pm