International Air Travel Rendered Difficult By Incompetence
By Dom Serafini
Outside of the misinformation and disinformation brigade at Fox News, the whole world seems to know of the trouble caused to air travelers and airlines alike by the incompetent and incapable White House administration under president Bush.
Even so, the latest salvo directed at air travelers by president Barack Obama’s administration took everyone by surprise. Yes, I was prepared for former Wall Street executives to roam the Obama cabinet, and thus resigned to accepting Goldman Sachs’ rule over the White House, but I never could have imagined such Bush-style incompetence as far as air travel was concerned.
I’m talking about the attempted Christmas Day bombing on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. Nowadays, what does a terrorist have to do to get noticed? It seems that no matter what terrorists do or say beforehand, American government officials are oblivious to their actions. Mind you, this is a bi-partisan predicament. The biggest problem is that it’s the people the world over and never the incompetent U.S. government officials who end up paying the consequences.
The father of the Christmas Day terrorist, one of the most respected bankers in Nigeria, walked into the American Embassy on November 19 and turned in his own son. And yet nothing happened. When his son tried to blow up the airplane over U.S. soil, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) simply stated, “the system worked [well].”
I would have replied, “Too bad travelers now have to endure more discomfort, airlines risk loss of business and people feel less secure!”
Traveling is a serious business, especially for us in the international entertainment industry, therefore anything the U.S. government does or doesn’t do affects us tremendously.
Among other new measures, here is a list of procedures that the various incompetents at U.S. government levels have imposed on us innocent travelers:
• Be rendered naked by security personnel’s body scanners.
• Refrain from all movements in the cabin and any access to personal items for a full hour before landing (apparently going to the bathroom one hour before landing is a cause for alarm to U.S. officials).
• Slower lines at security checkpoints mean many more missed flights.
• Chuck, Dick and Missy can no longer board a plane to and from the U.S. if they are not listed under their real names –– Charles, Richard and Melissa.
• Since airports (bless their designers) have restaurants outside the security check-in areas, be happy with some candies found near the gates when you get hungry before boarding.
Paul Leyh, director of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), wrote in USA Today, “Protecting the transportation network in a post-9/11 world requires utilizing intelligence in developing sound security practices, protecting privacy and forging strong partnerships with industry.” One wonders where Leyh has been all this time, because according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general, “The TSA is failing to ensure the security of boxed cargo in passenger planes, leaving the airplanes at risk for a terrorist attack.” Unlike luggage, airplane cargo is not screened by the TSA. DHS’s inspector general Richard Skinner stated that “the TSA has not been effective” in tightening scrutiny of the 5.5 million kilos of cargo carried each day alongside luggage in passenger planes.
At this point, air travel should be the litmus test of any U.S. President: if one is able to solve the predicament that travelers face today, that Chief is capable of resolving all other problems.
In the U.S., national security is handled by the CIA, FBI, NSA, TSA, the Department of State, the U.S. Marshals and the DHS. Plus, at the local level, police departments have their own counter-terrorism squads (like the SWAT team) for a total of 16 agencies (without counting the military’s own security and investigative forces). Basically, this constitutes a platoon of people operating domestically and internationally, but still unable to digest a simple tip from the father of the terrorist.
Why not give the job of keeping the U.S. safe and air passengers comfortable to the Israelis? They seem to know how to handle, deal with and prevent terrorist attacks. Israelis are careful about what goes in a plane’s cargo area and pay close attention to who is getting on board, not just what is in the luggage. That’s the way to go to make traveling to a TV market more painless.
