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Nigeria Upset Over New U.S. Security Measures
According to the AFP, Nigeria has “branded new security measures for passengers flying to the United States unfair and said they amounted to discrimination against its 150 million people.” Nigeria, home of failed underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is one of 14 countries from which all air travellers to the U.S. will be “subjected to extra checks including body pat-downs.”
I tend to agree with Nigerian Information Minister Dora Akunyili that “Abdulmutallab’s behaviour is not reflective of Nigerians and should therefore not be used as a yardstick to judge all Nigerians.” After all, “[h]e was not influenced in Nigeria. He was not recruited or trained in Nigeria. He was not supported whatsoever in Nigeria.”
Besides, if terrorists want to enter the U.S. by air, they just won’t try to do so from one of those 14 countries. So, yes, this seems like fairly arbitrary discrimination. I understand that Nigeria is one of those “countries of interest” identified by the Transport Security Administration (TSA) — as it isn’t a state-sponsor of terrorism — but whether it actually deserves to be is another matter, and it probably shouldn’t be, unless the U.S. wants to broaden its definition of “countries of interest” to pretty much any non-western country. Although, again, given that Islamic terrorists have been active in countries like Spain and the U.K., where should the line be drawn? It seems to be that a more nuanced approach to fighting terrorism is preferable to broad vilifications of entire countries.
Then again, maybe the Nigerians should stop sending all those “you’ve won a billion dollars, send all your personal information and a money order” spam e-mails if they want to win some goodwill from Americans (and the rest of us).
And, while they’re at it, maybe they should stop selling cat food to the prawns in exchange for weapons. That’s really not helping.
(Cross-posted from The Reaction.)
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5 Responses to “Nigeria Upset Over New U.S. Security Measures”
Screw Nigeria. In my experience the Nigerians are among the most arrogant people on the planet.
“Screw Nigeria. In my experience the Nigerians are among the most arrogant people on the planet.”
Seconded …..
What ugly and hateful comments you two. Generalizing about 150 million people (the size of half our population) in that way is just ignorant. I don't know many Nigerians, but those I do are far from your description.
The point here is we are programmed now to “react.” And if reaction isn't immediate, we criticize (see Obama taking -gasp- 3 days to make a *statement*). What we want and expect is someone to step up decisively and say “problem identified, action taken.” Most people don't think too deeply about this. For example nothing done by TSA since 9/11 would have stopped that attack. No weapons were carried on board in shoes or luggage, or computers or cameras, no toenail scissors were used, no knitting needles. This has all been the illusion of security and that's exactly what we want. “Action taken.”
Now imagine if another Nigerian tried a stunt like that and we had not “taken action.” So forget intelligent choices. We just want something, anything, done that we can point to as “keeping us safe.”
Of course the Underwear Bomber isn't representative of Nigerians. Nor the e-mail scammers. But they're the ones in the news (as well as others making news in Nigeria for terrorism against oil companies as well as there and elsewhere in Africa with the spread of strife along with Islam there).
I thought this was a decent article…that is, until I read the last two paragraphs. What do those irrelevant and over-generalized statements have to do with the core premise of your article? Your statements are particularly eggregious in light of the fact that in another section of the “article” you admonished the US for making gross generalizations without complete facts. In the future, endeavour to tone down the double-talk and stick to the facts.