Terror Threats: How Much Do We Really Want To Know ?
This morning the US Senate held a hearing on the subject of the leading terror threats facing the US and the world today.
As I watched a portion of the hearing two things came to mind.
First, that the hearing was to some degree for show and that there were many even more scary threats that they were not going to discuss in public.
Second, I pondered, do I really want to know about those threats (or indeed the ones being discussed at the hearing) ?
I mean what could I do about it if I did know ?
Let’s assume that one of the threats was that terror groups were planning to get hired to do janitorial work in a large office building and in doing so they would poison the hand soap in the bathrooms.
Now what can I do about this ?
Not ever wash my hands in public ?
Demand to see the paperwork for the janitor in every building I go to ?
Indeed what could President Obama really do about it ?
I know it’s popular in some circles to say that Bush is to blame for 9/11 because he ‘ignored threats’. But the evidence he had was that terrorists somewhere, possibly in the US or possibly overseas, might use planes to attack buildings somewhere in the US.
So how was he or his administration supposed to fight against that ?
Even after 9/11 people objected to security screenings at the airports, before they never would have stood for them. And even if we had screenings, all the terrorists had to do was adjust the plan to fit the new screening rules.
By the same token, if President Obama was faced with my hypothetical janitorial threat, what could he do ?
Send federal inspectors to analyze the soap in every bathroom in every building ?
I’m not saying that we should just stick our heads in the sand, we need to be aware of things around us and exercise a degree of common sense. But the idea that we can somehow prevent terror attacks from happening and live in a secure world is a fantasy.
As the saying goes, the good guys have to get lucky every time, the bad guy just needs to do so once.
2 Responses to “Terror Threats: How Much Do We Really Want To Know ?”
That’s why we need to replace the current janitorial staffs with little kids. How will that help, you say, or not. Well, the original staff could have easily been infiltrated by the bad guys/gals, but the new kids could be deployed on a rotating basis and their school passes encoded with the latest security devices.
Now we not only have have security for soap dispensers, but a work ethic that could lead to FBI employment opportunities.
I think the biggest threat is, and always has been, home grown terrorists ala Timothy McVeigh. I would suspect, all counted, more people have been killed by our own misfits than in the 9/11 attack.
A friend, who would know, once told me the main threat chemical plants worry about, and I would assume this would apply to nuclear plants and bio-technology facilities as well, is disgruntled employees.
Just recently a local nuclear plant was given a warning, and stiff training procedures to be applied to the plant and the employee, after the employee walked out of the control room in a huff after a fight with another employee.
I could be wrong.