Now with 25% more raptor
I thoroughly empathise with the anxiety that must sweep over New Yorkers, in particular, on days like today. Given that one just doesn't see planes fly into the side of a building that often and they've now had 3 in the last 5 years, one can acknowedge they're right to be a little edgy.
What will never make sense, however, is the overreaction of city, state and federal organisations at these times.
I do admit, I wasn't there, so I don't know whether this is somewhat the work of a media beat-up, but police officers with automatic weapons standing on street corners?
It's times like these I would pay a small fortune to ask the set of tools that run the fine country that is the United States what they think a terrorist is, and how, exactly, they think that these people operate.
Because as all intelligent people understand, terrorists are not individuals that try to tiptoe past police barricades and blow shit up after an accident, giving the police at least a sniff of opportunity to line them up in their sights and unload a clip into them.
No, I'm afraid terrorists attack under conditions of calm when there is the least threat that their plan will be scuttled. They maintain their moniker because their threat is absolutely terrifying - we don't see it coming, we don't get a chance to defend. We don't even get a chance to get them to court after their acts.
Heavily armed cops are one thing. But of course the real demonstration of force is reserved for the special occasions, such as when George comes to town. This is when the boys in blue fade into insignificance. This is when an appropriate security detail is a battleship in the Hudson and fighter jets in the air.
Because, as we're all taught from an early age with picture books, these machines of war are frightfully accurate at a street level, and can readily stop a handful of people - potentially passport-carrying American citizens - that mill amongst the well-wishers with a plan to destroy a motorcade.
I mean, give it up GW. I know why you do it but it fools no one, least of all the handful of people you're worried about. And, truly, Americans are not so stupid as to believe that a battleship is going to keep them safe in a major urban city - a boat, after all, is a boat: it can't sail down 5th.
The very sad truth is that the terrorists won a long time ago, George, when they made you shred the freedom and liberties your country's founding fathers set up many years ago. You can pretend you've got it under control at every checkpoint, now, but you lost buddy. Cops on street corners with automatic weapons doesn't make Manhattan a safe place - it just turns it into one of any number of cities around the world where people live in fear.
Like Baghdad, say.
What will never make sense, however, is the overreaction of city, state and federal organisations at these times.
I do admit, I wasn't there, so I don't know whether this is somewhat the work of a media beat-up, but police officers with automatic weapons standing on street corners?
It's times like these I would pay a small fortune to ask the set of tools that run the fine country that is the United States what they think a terrorist is, and how, exactly, they think that these people operate.
Because as all intelligent people understand, terrorists are not individuals that try to tiptoe past police barricades and blow shit up after an accident, giving the police at least a sniff of opportunity to line them up in their sights and unload a clip into them.
No, I'm afraid terrorists attack under conditions of calm when there is the least threat that their plan will be scuttled. They maintain their moniker because their threat is absolutely terrifying - we don't see it coming, we don't get a chance to defend. We don't even get a chance to get them to court after their acts.
Heavily armed cops are one thing. But of course the real demonstration of force is reserved for the special occasions, such as when George comes to town. This is when the boys in blue fade into insignificance. This is when an appropriate security detail is a battleship in the Hudson and fighter jets in the air.
Because, as we're all taught from an early age with picture books, these machines of war are frightfully accurate at a street level, and can readily stop a handful of people - potentially passport-carrying American citizens - that mill amongst the well-wishers with a plan to destroy a motorcade.
I mean, give it up GW. I know why you do it but it fools no one, least of all the handful of people you're worried about. And, truly, Americans are not so stupid as to believe that a battleship is going to keep them safe in a major urban city - a boat, after all, is a boat: it can't sail down 5th.
The very sad truth is that the terrorists won a long time ago, George, when they made you shred the freedom and liberties your country's founding fathers set up many years ago. You can pretend you've got it under control at every checkpoint, now, but you lost buddy. Cops on street corners with automatic weapons doesn't make Manhattan a safe place - it just turns it into one of any number of cities around the world where people live in fear.
Like Baghdad, say.
posted by W at 12:46 am
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