Home of the brave? Land of the free? Not anymore.
If it weren’t for the fact that I family living in the USA I would never cross that border. I would BDS the country. At the very least I would avoid it like the plague. They call themselves the land of the brave and the home of the free. Not anymore. And without doubt, they’ve lost that lovin’ feeling.
America has fallen into wallowing. If America suffered as many terror attacks in a year as Israel does in a month -her doors would be closed, welcome mats whisked in and freedom-well, I fear to even speculate. She’d be overwhelmed with the grief and never-ending public displays of mourning and memorializing. Each time a tragedy befalls America, time stops. America stops. They seem to be in a constant state of shock. How dare anyone do this in my country? Really? Still? And those of us who cross her borders suffer more and more as they “beef up” security with more and more regulations, and my favourite- machines-rather than attack the terror at its source.
I have traveled from Canada to many European countries, to Israel and back, from Israel to Egypt and back to Israel and have never been treated the way the Americans treat travelers.
Flying home from Baltimore-Baltimore! just about did me in. BWI-Baltimore Washington International Airport. I have thought about going to the airport in my bathrobe with my travel clothes in my bag. It would be faster. And one does not want to take too much time disrobing or others get antsy. You remove your jacket, belt, scarves, jewellery, shoes, your cosmetic bags; computers out of their cases, everything put in bins, which of course means all your worldly goods-wallets, money, keys are taken away from you and x-rayed. They’re looking for things like guns, brass knuckles and razor blades. They even have behavioral detection officers at this airport.
And yet, that’s still not enough. The coup de gras: THE MACHINE. Full -body scanners. I read that there are some problems with these privacy-invading machines. They don’t work.And yet "It's the wave of the future," said James Schear, the TSA security director at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where two body scanners are in use at one checkpoint.
There is however a sign that one can read while waiting to go through all the X-ray machines. It tells you not to worry about the full body scanner. Of course they are safe. They said so. And the sign says your privacy will be protected. Sure, that’s what the sign says. But the TSA says “it protects privacy by blurring passengers' faces and deleting images right after viewing. Yet the images are detailed, clearly showing a person's gender. ‘You can actually see the sweat on someone's back,’ Schear said.” In lieu of that experience you can request a pat down. I do. This time one would have thought that I had requested special treatment. It seems I did.
Schear, the Baltimore security director, said only 4% of passengers decline. In Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where scanners have been tested since last year as an alternative to pat-downs, 90% of passengers choose to be scanned, the TSA says. "Most passengers don't think it's any big deal," Schear said. "They think it's a piece of security they're willing to do." They think? They don’t ask? Lemmings.
I was told in a surly manner by a female security guard to go to the corner-yes a corner. And wait. For what…? I don’t know. Someone to take care of it. I am in the airport at the security line requesting my right to a pat down as opposed to the Full Scanner machine and I am waiting for someone to perform this act? So I stood there waiting and waiting. And then I ask her about the pat down. Wait in the corner. And then I won’t wait anymore. I walked over to her and there was another security guard there and I requested a supervisor. Well, what was the problem? The problem was waiting for a pat down; all my worldly goods had passed through the X-ray machine and were sitting at the end of the belt- and we all know that things in bins at security are always safe! The security guard told me as he turned his back on my bins.
Surprise! It was that very same surly woman who was responsible for the pat down and just couldn’t pull herself away from pointing travelers into the Full -body scanner. This in an airport that prides itself on behavioural detection officers. Senior citizen, carry-on baggage, properly stripped of all things prior to my personal security check and this is how America responds. It isn’t just the security-it is the manner in which it is delivered. She grabbed my things from the three bins and my computer as if they were all radio-active. And at the end checked to be sure that I hadn’t handled explosives.
It is the attitude, the arrogance that I resent. I think there was a time when Americans believed their own PR. That they were exceptional. And then as their fears of others increased so too did their grandiose infantile delusions of entitlement. Terrorism defeated them long ago. They just haven’t accepted it. This is a defeated country. America gave up its soul to terrorism and retreated. I have watched as she has become isolationist-especially with this administration.
It’s not as if America the proud has not behaved badly in the world-WWI they arrived late. WWII, I often wonder if Japan hadn’t bombed Pearl Harbour when would the USA have entered the fray. And this war on terror. Sure they made mistakes. But as Uzay Bulut wrote in Gatestone, “It would also not be realistic to claim that the West has created all these hundreds of Islamic terror groups across the Muslim world.” How does one fight terror? I don’t believe there is or was a book on fighting the barbarianism of Islamic Jihad.
Now the USA just backs away from facing this war on western democracies; from taking “serious action to stop ISIS, Boko Haram and other extremist Islamic groups.”
Instead they fight terrorism with security checks that deprive their citizens and visitors of their dignity. Well done America. You behave like bullies now. And we all know that bullies are just people who are jealous and lash out. You are jealous because of your nostalgia for the fairy-tale past of an imagined invincible America.
It’s not too late to wake-up and defend western civilization.
