US Complains Russia Bombs CIA Trained al Qaeda Forces

The White House has complained that Russia bombed the al Qaeda forces the US has been training to fight Assad. US Complains As Russia Bombs Its Terrorists

Yes the US/CIA has been training al Qaeda aligned jihadists (Div 30 mercenaries) to fight against Syria and ISIL, the problem being these so called "moderate" Syrian rebels are almost all affiliated with al Qaeda. $500 million has been spent for this training (supposedly for a 5000 Syrian Rebel fighters), which has resulted in massive desertions, leaving a total "4 or 5" still fighting in Syria. The most recent graduating class of 54 Div 30 fighters, promptly handed over all their US supplied weaponry to al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra. US-trained-Division-30-rebels-betrayed-US-and-hand-weapons-over-to-al-Qaedas-affiliate-in-Syria Isn't al Qaeda our enemy? Didn't they hijack and crash 4 commercial airlines, brought down the Twin Trade Towers and killed 3000 Americans? Can you imagine if President Obama would have campaigned on training al Qaeda to fight against Syria? I don't get it

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Obama was Right to Vacillate on Syria

Leon Panetta, stumping his new book, has blamed Obama for not starting a bombing campaign against Syria after the use of chemical weapons (crossing a "red line"). What is interesting is Obama's actions in Syria may have been the one bright area in his disastrous Presidency. Staring with the assault on Libya, the US and Saudi Arabia armed al Qaeda soldiers that were the enemy of our enemy at the time. The army of terrorists moved to Syria to join Syrian rebels and received more training and guns, much of which were smuggled out of Benghazi through Turkey. It was at this point that Obama parted from the neo-cons, doubting that any further arms given to the Syrian Rebels could be kept from the al Qaeda forces. After the chemical weapons attack that was at once blamed on the Assad regime,  Obama held back on a US bombing campaign against Syria. This allowed a UN Commission investigation; the end result of which, showed it was highly likely the chemical attack was a provocateur attack by the anti-Assad al Qaeda/ ISIL terrorists. Of course with the pulling back from hostilities against Assad, the al Qaeda army reformed as ISIL and swarmed into Iraq.

The end result was allowing Russia to intervene and start the process of removing the stock piled chemical weapons from Syria without any further bloodshed. The true loser here is Saudi Arabia, who counted on the US to remove Assad from Syria. This also showed the absurdity of the propaganda that Syria was a breading ground for these Sunni Islamic terrorists, when in reality it has been Saudi Arabia from the beginning (as I said before there is no difference in the allegation that al Qaeda was in Iraq and that al Qaeda is in Syria; they are/were both a pretext to invade and overthrow sovereign countries for NATO's political purposes); it seems to have been completely forgotten that  Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian as were 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11. There is also the fact that is was Leon Penetta as secretary of Defense whom informed Congress that his military takes it's orders from NATO, so the idea that our Commander in Chief might hold back his neo-con agenda must have been infuriating.

Enough with President Obama's Lies

The Presidents lying started with, "If you want your Doctor you can keep your doctor and if you like your plan you can keep your plan" (and it will save families $2400 @year but now costs an average of $2400@ year more); then it was 20 years in Jeremiah Wright's church and he never heard anything racial or anti-American. He was going to end partisan politics; he said the current gun laws are enough, but has since argued for more restrictive laws including reinstatement of the federal assault weapons ban that by his own words is only symbolic; do we really need an attack on the second amendment taken solely in the name of symbolism? Obama said he believed in the sanctity of a one woman one man marriage and now pushes for anything but. Obama pledged not to hire lobbyists and pledged to participate in the public financing system, then opted out and spent more money than has ever been spent on a single candidate. The President chastised prior Presidents for military action taken without the consent of Congress, yet has never asked Congress for consent in an ongoing series of military campaigns. There is also the fact that President Obama castigated Republicans, who he says have policies that enriches the top 1% - 10%, which causes wealth disparity (aka wealth inequality). Yet for 6 years he has done nothing to stop the Federal Reserve from loaning  money at 0%, which is they key reason the rich are pouring money into the stock market that continues it's upward spike causing greater wealth in equality , while the middle class is still dealing with the loss of 10 years of equity as a result of the 2008 sub prime bank melt down.

Obama and the White House swore to the American people that attack on Bengazi was because of a video and that we had al Qaeda on the run. The President has been heard to say Syria is a breading ground for al Qaeda, yet the Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime are mostly al Qaeda (claiming a connection between Syria and al Qaeda is exactly the same as the claiming a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq, both are a dishonest pretext for war). The US armed these Syrian rebels with arms captured in Libya. Al Qaeda has now regrouped under the name of ISIS/ISIL and with weapons and training given to them by the US and other NATO members, and now they have invaded Iraq. Now we hear Obama say his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper gave him bad intelligence on ISIS/ISIL (of course this is the same person that said the Muslim Brotherhood was non-secular and lied to congress about the NSA with the "least untruthful" lie he could think of), so like Jeremiah Wright, Clapper gets thrown under the bus (and there are so many more!).

Hopefully the American people will realize in the next election that all these lies and violations of the Constitution would not have been possible without a co-dependent Democratic Senate. This may be the case as Nancy Pelosi seems to only come out to declare the end of the Republican party, when she fears the Democrats may be routed..

My Enemy's Enemy and the Syrian Rebels' False Flag

There is an Islam saying, "My enemy's enemy is my friend". It appears the President Obama has taken this to the extreme as while Americans are dying at the hands of al Qaeda in Afghanistan he is now singing their praises in Syria, desiring to ally the US with these terrorists in the name of human decency, while al Qaeda  allied terrorists continue to murder rape and torture in Syria. In other world al Qaeda is our friend because they are enemies with the Assad Regime, but the enemy in Afghanistan that destroyed the Twin Towers and murdered over 2700 American Citizens on 9/11/2001; I guess we're going to need a score card. *Now the claim is that Syria has completely ignored their own self interest and used chemical weapons on it's own people (the last time chemical weapons were used in Syria it was aimed at Syrian soldiers and the UN investigation blamed the rebels). This time again there is a great deal of suppressed evidence, including al Qaeda  jihadists publicly claiming  responsibility and our President is alone in the world wanting to punish Syria for a crime they have yet to make a case beyond a reasonable doubt.

In May 2013 Secretary of State John Kerry used the same argument that only the Assad's Regime had the ability to maintain and disperse sarin gas. However a short time later Syran Rebels were arrested at the Syrian border with 2 kg of sarin gas Russia Asks Turkey for Info on Sarin Terrorist. This of course destroyed Kerry's talking points so it was simply ignored by the main stream press in the US. Further the the results of the UN investigation of the gas attack in May resulted in the UN declaring an almost surety that the gas attack was done by the rebels, not the Assad regime. Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack Carried Out by Rebels says UN. There is also the fact that the Syrian Rebels have had access to the Syrian Regime's chemical weapons since they temporary took control of the Syrian Sheikh Suleiman military base in December 2010, The Sheikh Suleiman base is thought to have been a key node in the Syrian military's chemical weapons program.
Syrian Government Accuses Rebels of Launching Chemical Attack These ongoing scenarios are so embarrassing that they have made the US and President Obama the laughing stock of the world and destroyed whatever credibility and respect remained since Obama took office. The real question in my mind is why Syria? What is so important about taking sides in the proxy war that originally started as the Syrian civil war. Is Obama going Down the Same Path as G.Bush and WMDs?
 
Regardless of the facts of who is using the sarin gas, we clearly have a proxy war building in Syria, with the US (representing Saudi Arabia), al-Queda and the Sunnis on one side and Russia, Assad, Hezbollah, and  the Shiites on the other. The inclusion now of Hezbollah in this Syrian  proxy war is quickly disintegrating into Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict that could easily spread though out the middle east.  Further there is no way one could guarantee that the weapons the US will be feeding the non al-Queda rebels will not end up in the arms of al-Queda.

The answer appears to be as simple as the Obama legacy.  However the legacy may not be what Obama wants. President Obama's Foreign Policy Legacy  (History will see) the overthrowing (or attempt) of the sovereign states of Egypt, Libya and now Syria and handing the coutries over the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood. As in Iraq, the removal of a strong man/ dictator has resulted in sectarian violence and civil war. While the Presidential rhetoric has always been the need for Democracy in these countries, the reality is the citizenry in these Arab states are simply ignorant when it comes to the responsibilities of a Democracy and the end result always turns to Islam and Sharia law. One has to wonder why the President of the United States, the Land of Liberty is so apologetic towards Eastern Islam (ie the Muslim Brotherhood), which is violently misogynist, vehemently anti-gay and anti-education and overtly anti-democratic; as the saying goes, an Arab democracy means 1 man, one vote, 1 time.

*Update; there is now a video showing what is described as the Syrian rebels launching a chemical weapon in the August chemical gas attack. Video shows rebels Launching Gas Attack. There has also been another credible investigation that Syrian al Qaede launched the gas attack Did the White House Help Plan the Syrian Chemical Attack?

President Obama's Foreign Policy Legacy

The main stream press is not reporting much of this, but the Arab spring of last year has turned into civil war and turmoil in both Libya and Egypt. Libya has now become the main base of the terror group in the region (al Queda), heightening the instability of what is already a volatile country. The al Qaeda Headquarters in Lybia and Egypt is embroiled in another civil war in an attempt to oust the Muslim Brotherhood that took over after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak. Anti-government protesters say that now that the Muslim Brotherhood has its hands on the levers of power, it's using them to enforce its version of Islam on society. In particular they say the constitution, forced through by Morsi, needs rewriting.
Egypt Teeters On The Brink Of The Future
And of course the attempt by the US to undermine the Bashar al-Assad in Syria has led the US to arm al Qaeda, created tensions between the US and Russia on the lack of proof that the Assad used chemical weapons, and has turned in to a Shite/Sunni holy war with the inclusion of Hezbollah. Regardless of the facts of who is using the sarin gas, we clearly have a proxy war building in Syria, with the US , al Qaeda and the Sunnis on one side and Russia, Assad, Hezbollah, and the Shiites on the other. Is Obama Going Down The Same Path of G. Bush and WMDs? .

Probably the most laughable moment in the President Obama's foreign policy (laughable in a very overtly propaganda sense) is Director of National Intelligence James Clapper telling congress that the Muslin Brotherhood in Egypt is "largely secular". Obama Administration Corrects Clapper's Claim That Muslim Brotherhood Is 'Secular . Of course the reality was once the Muslim Brotherhood took power is was business as usual for the (now?) non-secular Muslim Brotherhood. As a result, the Constitution was not inclusive and it did not consecrate the values of citizenship, freedom and human rights. Rather, the Constitution limited freedoms and human rights, and canceled the equality between men and women
Muslim Brotherhood’s Unilateralism Harmed the Egyptian Revolution

This appears to be the legacy of President Obama; the over throwing (or attempt) of the sovereign states of Egypt, Libya and now Syria and handing the countries over the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood. As in Iraq, the removal of a strong man/ dictator has resulted in sectarian violence and civil war. While the Presidential rhetoric has always been the need for Democracy in these countries, the reality is the citizenry in these Arab states are simply ignorant when it comes to the responsibilities of a Democracy and the end result always turns to Islam and Sharia law. One has to wonder why the President of the United States, the Land of Liberty is so apologetic towards Eastern Islam (ie the Muslim Brotherhood), which is violently misogynic, vehement anti-gay and anti-education and overtly antidemocratic; as the saying goes, an Arab democracy means 1 man, one vote, 1 time.

Update: in a story the American Media has refused to run, a Catholic Priest was beheaded by Syrian freedom fighters linked to al Queda. Catholic Priest Beheaded in Syria by Al-Qaeda-Linked Rebels as Men and Children Take Pictures and Cheer These are the rebels the US is arming to take down the "murderous" al-Assad Syrian rebels accept help from US,pledge loyalty to al-Qaida If nothing else it shows that the Obama Administration once again views itself above the law, the providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations 18 USC § 2339B

Is Obama Going Down The Same Path of G. Bush and WMDs?

The Obama Administration has said it is ready to provide Syrian rebels with military support after evidence that Bashar Assad's regime has used chemical weapons; sarin in particular. The reasoning is Assad is known to have a large stock of chemical weapons, which it has said it would never be used on their own people. The White House has said they have confirmed that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons against opposition targets, which is in contradiction to the UN investigation that has shown it was the rebels that have used the sarin gas, which makes much more sense and I'll explain why. First it is well known that President Obama has said that if the Assad regime were to use chemical weapons it would be a "game changer" and a "red line" that must not be crossed. The simple fact is the use of chemical weapons in Syria has been extremely limited and have had no military effect what so ever;  while there have been no reports of rebels deaths by chemical weapons, the highest casually incident killed 15 Syrian soldiers. We know that one of the major factions within the The Free Syrian Army are al Qaeda associated forces (ie Jabhat al-Nusrah), does it not seem highly likely that al Qaeda would use chemical weapons for the purpose of blaming the Assaud regime, as it guarantees the US will intervene. Further, as the US  has clearly positioned it self as anti-Syrian, it has taken a predisposition that  it is Assad's forces that have used chemical weapons.

 Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who met with the rebels last month and has been a vocal critic of the president's Syria policy said in a joint statement with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.: "We appreciate the President's finding that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons on several occasions. We also agree with the President that this fact must affect U.S. policy toward Syria. The President's red line has been crossed. U.S. credibility is on the line. Now is not the time to merely take the next incremental step. Now is the time for more decisive actions...A decision to provide lethal assistance, especially ammunition and heavy weapons, to opposition forces in Syria is long overdue." Syria Used Chemical Weapons Crossing Red Line

This predisposition of the US looking for any reason to increase it's presence in the Syrian conflict is not lost on Syria or it's ally Russia.

Both the administration of US President Obama and other representatives of the anti-Syrian alliance have repeatedly warned against the use of chemical weapons, called it a “game changer” and have repeatedly accused the Syrian government and military for using chemical weapons so as to justify a military aggression against Syria. Russia and Syria have repeatedly demanded full, independent investigations into every single case of chemical weapons use by expert commissions.

The US administration and members of the anti-Syrian alliance continue using chemical weapons threats to position the Syrian government and military as war criminals. A UN investigation as well as other, mounting evidence strongly suggests that it is the foreign backed opposition, first and foremost the strongest of the fighting forces with al Qaeda association, such as Jabhat al-Nusrah, which are using chemical weapons including sarin Syrian Military Seizes Sarin Gas From Rebels

Another interesting development is addition to Russia siding with Assad you now have the appearance of  Hezbollah.

 The claims of a Hezbollah presence in Syria’s north follow a pledge by its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, to back Assad to victory and indicate that the movement could be used as a guerrilla force wherever required. A long-standing ally of Syria and Iran, its decision to knuckle into the fight raises the specter of a regional conflagration spilling over Syria’s borders, pitting Sunni against Shiite. Underscoring that point, Syrian rebels and Hezbollah fighters engaged Sunday in their first serious clashes on Lebanese soil. Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria draws retaliation by Syrian rebels against Lebanese

Regardless of the facts of who is using the sarin gas, we clearly have a proxy war building in Syria, with the US , al Qaeda and the Sunnis on one side and Russia, Assad, Hezbollah, and  the Shiites on the other. The inclusion now of Hezbollah in this Syrian  proxy war is quickly disintegrating into Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict that could easily spread though out the middle east.  Further there is no way one could guarantee that the weapons the US will be feeding the non al Qaeda rebels will not end up in the arms of al Qaeda.

"The Syrian state is disintegrating in much of the country, leaving vast ungoverned spaces that are being filled by extremists, many aligned with al Qaeda," McCain told the Brookings Institution think-tank. "They are the best armed, best funded, and most experienced fighters. And every day this conflict grinds on, these extremists are marginalizing moderate leaders like the commanders I met last week."The Free Syrian Army and its commanders seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad were in desperate need of "ammunition and weapons to counter Assad's tanks, artillery, and air power," he said. Arm Syrian Rebels Or Risk Rise Of Extremism

The comparison between the Bush Administration intelligence showing  WMD  in Iraq and the Obama Administration claiming  use of sarin gas was not from the rebels, as a provocation to invade Syria, is not lost with the Russians.

Officials from Russia, which along with Iran is Mr. Assad's most prominent foreign ally, said the evidence on chemical weapons isn't rock solid."We had a meeting with American representatives in which Americans tried to present information to us about the regime's use of chemical weapons, but frankly speaking, the evidence Americans set out looks unconvincing," Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin's top foreign-policy aide, said Friday, according to Russian news agencies.
Mr. Ushakov cited the flawed intelligence assessment from the administration of former President George W. Bush about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war but said he didn't want to "draw any parallels."Other Russian officials were more direct. "The data on Assad's use of chemical weapons is fabricated just like the lies about weapons of [Saddam] Hussein's weapons of mass destruction," read a tweet on the feed of Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Russian parliament's international relations committee. "Obama is going down the path of G. Bush." Russia Hits Back at U.S. Over Syria

TSA and the German Corn Field

The following article was posted in the “As you see it” portion of the Santa Cruz Sentential, with follow-up remarks on Newspaper’s blog.

The Transportation Security Administration is making flying much more dangerous, not safer. The reason is obvious: If they are forced to search 100 percent of the passengers, they will certainly become careless if for no other reason than the monotony and fatigue . They are searching uniformed soldiers, small children, grandmothers, pilots, stewardesses, flight attendants and frequent fliers who they know are not terrorists, which will not only make them complacent, but they end up viewing their job more of a preventive measure, than actually believing they will find a terrorists (if they accidentally found a terrorists they would probably urinate all over themselves). All that is necessary is to identify all these fliers plus 90 percent of most domestic passengers through tickets sales and several times again prior to entering the secure part of the terminal. Add to that behavior profiling, such as what's done in Israel, and the TSA could render air transportation truly safe and concentrate on the 1 percent of fliers whose behavior or background truly makes them suspect. Instead of searching the haystack one piece at a time to find a needle, use a magnet.

Poster: Well for starters, Israel has ONE primary international airport - I'm sure we could do a great job too if we could concentrate on ONE airport...

Response: There is no reason if something works well at one airport it could not be done at 100 airports. This does not mean the US would want to use the Israeli model unchanged, but since the US model prior to the full body scanners and enhanced pat downs worked for 10 years without a hitch, we could add some of the Israeli techniques to improve security without relinquishing our rights to privacy just so Rapidscan can sell billions of dollars of scanners; ex-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was pushing the use of full body scanners starting in 2005, then shortly after he retired in 2009, Rapiscan became a client of his consulting Chertoff Group; both are making huge profits from this sweetheart deal. Once again all you have to do is follow the money

Poster: Israel successfully uses racial profiling; this wouldn't work in America because people are more concerned about their civil rights being violated than they are about their own physical safety.

Response: If Americans cared more about their civil rights than safety, they would not allow TSA's enhanced searches without probable cause, violating their 4th Amendment rights. The concept of racial profiling by Israel is also false; over 20% of Israel’s population is Arab, and they certainly do not view 1/5 of the passengers as threats. Yes the fact that a person is a Muslim male in their 20's is a factor on their threat scale, but their behavioral profiling (not racial) and background checks are the brunt of their screening processes. The idea is to look for terrorists not devices. Racial profiling is a red herring thrown out by an overreaching Homeland Security that has made a bogeyman out of al Qaeda. The only changes that have made anyone safer since 911 have been securing the pilot's cabin and the knowledge that passengers will no longer let terrorists take control of an airliner. The so called justification for the naked body scanners is the Underwear Christmas bomber, who it turns out was allowed to board the airliner and circumvent the security measures in Amsterdam by what was later admitted by the US State Department as their screw-up, which means no one has been able to breech US Airline security since the first Christmas bomber, Richard Reed Dec 21, 2001. So it's been 10 years since a suicide bomber has smuggled a bomb onto a plane and without the use of enhanced pat downs and naked body scanners. What has become obvious is al Qaeda has run out of suicide bombers who have the sophistication to board an airline with a bomb; if this were not true, they surely would have done so by now. We know have to worry about body cavity searches, and mobile body scanners with TSA "viper teams" to be used at train and bus stations, and perhaps mall near you.

(added here for reference is an article from Infowars.com TSA Searches; are Trains and Subways next? )

From TSA head John Pistole, “Given the list of threats on subways and rails over the last six years going on seven years, we know that some terrorist groups see rail and subways as being more vulnerable because there’s not the type of screening that you find in aviation,” Pistole said. “From my perspective, that is an equally important threat area.”

Added by the article's author Kurt Nimmo, "It may not be long before you are forced through a naked body scanner or obliged to have your genitals groped in order to visit the local market to buy food and necessities. Considering the trajectory the TSA and the government are on, you may have to submit to a body cavity search at the local mall.

(continuing with my response)
From, "They Thought They Were Free", about the rise of Nazi control in Germany"

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

Has TSA Finally Crossed The Line With Enhanced Punitive Pat Downs?

Arrogance and and the over reaching of an ever increasing police state, may soon be the undoing of the TSA and Homeland Security. Once again Americans are faced with the issue referred to by Benjamin Franklin when he said "people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." Here the issue is also about privacy, a right so intrinsic to freedom, that absent privacy, freedom can not really exist. The most frequently quoted statement by a Supreme Court justice on the subject of privacy comes in Justice Brandeis's dissent in Olmstead v. U. S. (1928):
"The makers of our Constitution understood the need to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness, and the protections guaranteed by this are much broader in scope, and include the right to life and an inviolate personality -- the right to be left alone -- the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. The principle underlying the Fourth and Fifth Amendments is protection against invasions of the sanctities of a man's home and privacies of life. This is a recognition of the significance of man's spiritual nature, his feelings, and his intellect." There is a price to living

What has become obvious to most Americans, is that the TSA and the Federal Government has crossed the line in the American psyche the separates need for security and right to freedom. While the supposed rational behind the Full Body (or Naked Body) scanners is to protect flyers from terrorists, it has becoming more common knowledge that the likelihood of terrorists using a plane for terrorism has diminished greatly as a result of 911. In a 2008 article Jeffery Goldberg quoted security expert Bruce Schneier, “Transportation Security Administration, which is meant to protect American aviation from al Qaeda, represents an egregious waste of tax dollars, dollars that could otherwise be used to catch terrorists before they arrive at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, by which time it is, generally speaking, too late…. Counter terrorism in the airport is a show designed to make people feel better,” he said. “Only two things have made flying safer: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.” This assumes, of course, that al Qaeda will target airplanes for hijacking, or target aviation at all. “We defend against what the terrorists did last week,” Schneider said. He believes that the country would be just as safe as it is today if airport security were rolled back to pre-9/11 levels. “Spend the rest of your money on intelligence, investigations, and emergency response.”

Interestingly this over stepping of our 4th Amendment right to be free from governmental unreasonable search and seizure is a result of political correctness and a rather casual reading of the 14th Amendments equal protection under the law clause. In other words, the government would rather violate the right to privacy of the vast majority of non-Muslim Americans, than hurt the feelings of a minority of Muslims . While profiling Muslims may sound patently unconstitutional, one must remember so are full body scans and “enhanced pat downs” searches without probable cause. Profiling is only unconstitutional if it is arbitrary. The difference is the Federal Government has decided that the emergency circumstances that allow the violation of our Constitution rights, are better served against the majority of Americans then the minority of Muslims (be they be American citizens or not). The TSA already has what they call threat-based screening for those from a country of interest such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen, and four countries the US regards as state sponsors of terrorism: Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. But as a result the absurd thought process of the TSA, these screenings are considered controversial, and the frequency of these threat-based screenings are determined by world intelligence threat assessments. After 911, Israel offered to assist the United States in these form of threat based screenings that have been 100% successful. But the US refused, preferring to individually screen every flyer; this is lunacy.

Americans are actually rather prudish people. Not only are their proxemics, or zone of personal safety larger than most other societal norms, they don’t liked to be touched by strangers and they like to pick and choose who gets to see them naked. If there is a defining action by the TSA it is their enhanced pat-downs. And it’s not they are more intrusive, which they are, but it’s their stated purpose. The TSA has let it be known that the enhanced pat downs are not for enhanced security, the pat downs have been enhanced to make the passenger that has “opted-out” of the full body scanner feel so violated that they dare not opt out again; in essence the TSA has become one of the most oppressive arms of the federal government our country has ever known and is now punishing Americans for not wanting to do things their way. On cannot name one other Federal Government agency that is so draconian that it is trying to enforce its policies with physical pain and psychological trauma.The TSA has already stated that the next stage is portable full body scanners for shopping malls and schools; this of course would be the end of liberty and freedom in our country. It needs to stop. Will we be opting-out some security? Yes. Will there be a greater chance of a terrorist’s successful attack? This of course is unknown, but some of the best anti-terrorists say no. The reason is simple, we now no more about al Qaeda than they know about themselves. America has the technology to stop terrorism short of stripping everyone naked as the Nazi’s did. Let me repeat Benjamin Franklin one more time, "people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." There at two ways airline security and within this country are likely to go; the United States can continue on this path toward greater tyranny by assuming every person is equally suspect, or it can move toward the Israeli model that believes the 99% are innocent and spend your resources fretting out the minority that is the true threat. One thing is for sure, the very nature of government is to control the governed and what ever freedom you give up for a questionable promise of safety will not be given back without a fight. Further the fight to retain a freedom will always be easier than the fight to win back a freedom.

edited 11/16/10. After writing this OpEd it was brought to my attention that Janet Napolitano has repeatedly stated that the enhanced pat downs are not done for punishment. While it has been documented that Napolitano is continually at odds with the truth, I will include this article by Charlie Leocha from Consumer Traveler. The article, TSA Admits to Punishing Travelers (one of many from different sources) was written back in August and is self explanatory.