Introduction

These thoughts are still not properly organized or presented, but I am no longer able to keep them contained. I may revisit them when I'm not so frustrated and angry, and get this turned into a proper essay, or I may not. In any case, these are my personal opinions and no one else's.

Historical Facts

The following are either documented historical facts or are widely accepted observations:

prior to the New York City terrorist attack of 2001-09-11 (a.k.a. Sept. 11^th), the United States had one of the most lax airline security practices in the Western World
the Sept. 11^th highjackers didn't bypass any security checks prior to boarding their flights
highjacked passengers had a tacit understanding that if everyone cooperated then almost everyone would eventually get home safely
the US Government (and governments in general, everywhere) has a history of cover-ups, partial disclosures, and plausible deniability

My Frustrations

My personal frustrations with recent world events:

the US Government's public posturing following Sept. 11^th was that a breakdown in security allowed the highjackers to succeed, when in fact it was the outright absence of of reasonable security measures that opened the door for the highjackers
the new security measures put in place after Sept. 11^th are touted as increasing security, when in fact they produce so many false positives as to discourage anyone regularly exposed to them from taking them seriously
Canada's government, in an effort to appease the Americans, has made its security checks even more onerous than the US's own measures—exacerbating the false positives problem
the US now believes that somehow their political agenda is the only valid agenda—where the best recent example of this is the US Ambassador to Canada's (Paul Cellucci) criticism of Canada's decision to not fully participate in the US's unilateral decision to attack Iraq: on 25 March 2003 he said, "There is no security threat to Canada that the United States would not be willing and able to help with… There would be no debate. We would be there for Canada, part of our family, and that is why so many in the United States are disappointed and upset that Canada is not fully supporting us now."; implying that the US's security is being threatened and that Canada is leaving the Americans high and dry—a disingenuous position given that the US has not been able to produce credible evidence of a threat from Iraq

My Recommendations

Powerful nations must choose between two alternatives: to influence & further their agenda with either an open hand or a closed fist. It is unfortunate for us all that the US has chosen the latter option (interestingly, the same choice that Israel's King Rehoboam is reported to have faced when he inherited the throne from King Solomon [I Kings 12:4], and his subjects brought his reign to an untimely end).

Given my thoughts and frustrations, here are a couple of ideas I believe should be implemented:

create airline security regulations & practices that are rational and based upon measurable results; false positives desensitize everyone—passengers and security personnel alike. Profiling is going to be part of the solution, but let us do it in an open, responsible, and sensible manner. The airlines themselves, through their tracking of frequent flyers over the past 20 years, have vast quantities of useful information. Some sort of pre-screening must also be part of the solution; as it simply doesn't make sense (from a workflow/workload perspective) to do in real-time (at the last minute) those things that may be done in advance
revisit aid policies with a goal of finding ways of overwhelming those being helped with generosity in a way that will so bias them to seeing the democratic way of life as good that they will overthrow their despots and join us