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Beware 'friendly fire'at airports
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Beware 'friendly fire'at airports
By Mark Cashmanc 2002 WorldNetDaily.com A crowded airport thronged with people, slowed by security. A passenger bolts through the security measures and races up the escalator, yelling, "To hell with you. I'm gone." A National Guardsman starts to draw his gun. Even in the holster it has a bullet in the chamber and the safety is off. The Guardsman's finger is on the trigger, and halfway out of his holster, his gun fires. . What do you think happens next? This never occurred. Not as a single incident. But both pieces of this scenario did occur, and the idea they could happen together should make us concerned about airport security and the potential for a dangerous "friendly fire" incident against civilians. On Nov. 16, Michael Lasseter, late for a football game, sprinted past two guards and ran down the up escalator. On Jan. 4, National Guard Specialist Louis Alvarez was going off duty from San Francisco International Airport, drawing his gun so that it could be unloaded when the gun went off and shot him in the buttocks. Guardsmen with automatic weapons and sidearms have become a common sight in and around public places over the last several months. Initially, some were carrying weapons with no ammunition. Now, apparently, not only are their weapons loaded, but also may be carried with a bullet in the chamber and the safety off. Nothing else can explain the incident at SFO. And nothing could be more dangerous. Members of the National Guard are soldiers. As Rush Limbaugh puts it, the job of the soldier is to "break things and kill people." A soldier focused on defense is someone who is and should be dangerous. But he is not necessarily prepared to deal with apprehending a fugitive or protecting 99.9999 percent of the people in a crowded terminal while still taking out the bad guy. And, if you want to imagine the outcome of the scenario in the first paragraph of this article, one is the less-than-discriminate use of an M-16 in a crowded airport. What will we do then? Let's re-examine the security perspective that led to the presence of the National Guard at our airports. It was a "feel-good" measure designed to reassure jittery airline passengers that they were safe from terrorist attacks. But none of the Sept. 11 terrorists had anything more dangerous than a box cutter, and automatic weapons have mostly been used as weapons of terror in destabilized areas (such as Israel, Lebanon and Bosnia). Heavily armed military or police guards fail to address the threat. The modus operandi of the terrorist in stable countries uses small teams or individuals, indirect weapons (such as bombs), and a complete lack of the fear of death that makes police operations infeasible. Can a Guardsman or security officer stop a suicide bomber by threatening to shoot him? Absurd. Will the presence of the National Guard prevent a terrorist from parking a bomb-laden truck in front of an airport or a concert venue or a sports stadium? In the event the terrorist is detected in that act, will a Guardsman be more effective in stopping him than a police officer or a well-trained and armed security guard, or even a trained civilian with a carry permit? Unlikely. And even well-trained SWAT teams have caused accidental or mistaken civilian deaths. Conservatives and libertarians have another reason to be alarmed about the current use of the National Guard for these purposes, which is the nonobservance of the Posse Comitatus Act. Congress 120 years ago created the PCA when President Grant used military personnel to supplement federal Marshals at the polling places in South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida. The PCA is a federal law and does not apply directly to the National Guard (which is primarily a state militia). But citizens are unlikely to make so strict a separation. What they see are military personnel "protecting" them, reducing their shock at this "banana republic" display, and that sight could lead to the final negation of the PCA. Already, use of the military in the "War on Drugs" has led to tragic and fatal incidents. Is there a better answer? Let's keep in mind the objective - to prevent terrorists from turning airliners into cruise missiles. The best protection against that is the armed pilot, backed up with the frequent use of air marshals, deputized off-duty police and alert citizens ready to act. Then the Guard can go do what they do best, and we will be more secure.
Mark Cashman is a software architect, a digital artist, composer and freelance writer whose politics can be found at temporaldoorway.com. http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26148
By Mark Cashmanc 2002 WorldNetDaily.com A crowded airport thronged with people, slowed by security. A passenger bolts through the security measures and races up the escalator, yelling, "To hell with you. I'm gone." A National Guardsman starts to draw his gun. Even in the holster it has a bullet in the chamber and the safety is off. The Guardsman's finger is on the trigger, and halfway out of his holster, his gun fires. . What do you think happens next? This never occurred. Not as a single incident. But both pieces of this scenario did occur, and the idea they could happen together should make us concerned about airport security and the potential for a dangerous "friendly fire" incident against civilians. On Nov. 16, Michael Lasseter, late for a football game, sprinted past two guards and ran down the up escalator. On Jan. 4, National Guard Specialist Louis Alvarez was going off duty from San Francisco International Airport, drawing his gun so that it could be unloaded when the gun went off and shot him in the buttocks. Guardsmen with automatic weapons and sidearms have become a common sight in and around public places over the last several months. Initially, some were carrying weapons with no ammunition. Now, apparently, not only are their weapons loaded, but also may be carried with a bullet in the chamber and the safety off. Nothing else can explain the incident at SFO. And nothing could be more dangerous. Members of the National Guard are soldiers. As Rush Limbaugh puts it, the job of the soldier is to "break things and kill people." A soldier focused on defense is someone who is and should be dangerous. But he is not necessarily prepared to deal with apprehending a fugitive or protecting 99.9999 percent of the people in a crowded terminal while still taking out the bad guy. And, if you want to imagine the outcome of the scenario in the first paragraph of this article, one is the less-than-discriminate use of an M-16 in a crowded airport. What will we do then? Let's re-examine the security perspective that led to the presence of the National Guard at our airports. It was a "feel-good" measure designed to reassure jittery airline passengers that they were safe from terrorist attacks. But none of the Sept. 11 terrorists had anything more dangerous than a box cutter, and automatic weapons have mostly been used as weapons of terror in destabilized areas (such as Israel, Lebanon and Bosnia). Heavily armed military or police guards fail to address the threat. The modus operandi of the terrorist in stable countries uses small teams or individuals, indirect weapons (such as bombs), and a complete lack of the fear of death that makes police operations infeasible. Can a Guardsman or security officer stop a suicide bomber by threatening to shoot him? Absurd. Will the presence of the National Guard prevent a terrorist from parking a bomb-laden truck in front of an airport or a concert venue or a sports stadium? In the event the terrorist is detected in that act, will a Guardsman be more effective in stopping him than a police officer or a well-trained and armed security guard, or even a trained civilian with a carry permit? Unlikely. And even well-trained SWAT teams have caused accidental or mistaken civilian deaths. Conservatives and libertarians have another reason to be alarmed about the current use of the National Guard for these purposes, which is the nonobservance of the Posse Comitatus Act. Congress 120 years ago created the PCA when President Grant used military personnel to supplement federal Marshals at the polling places in South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida. The PCA is a federal law and does not apply directly to the National Guard (which is primarily a state militia). But citizens are unlikely to make so strict a separation. What they see are military personnel "protecting" them, reducing their shock at this "banana republic" display, and that sight could lead to the final negation of the PCA. Already, use of the military in the "War on Drugs" has led to tragic and fatal incidents. Is there a better answer? Let's keep in mind the objective - to prevent terrorists from turning airliners into cruise missiles. The best protection against that is the armed pilot, backed up with the frequent use of air marshals, deputized off-duty police and alert citizens ready to act. Then the Guard can go do what they do best, and we will be more secure.
Mark Cashman is a software architect, a digital artist, composer and freelance writer whose politics can be found at temporaldoorway.com. http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26148