Monday, December 28, 2009

Nigerians On A Plane

Thinking further about yesterday's post, it's no wonder the left is emphasising the whole Nigerian thing. After all, the Ummah's Undie Bomber might not have damaged any planes, but he's sure blown a hole in the left's credibility.

There's the obvious point that - again - the passenger on an airliner who turns out to be a terrorist is the one who fits perfectly the profile for a terrorist (or would have done if airlines were allowed to profile passengers). That ought not to be a surprise, but it sure seems to keep passing the left by. If the evidence for Gerbil Worming was as strong as the evidence for profiling, conservatives would be biking to work, but instead the left insists that since profiling wouldn't necessarily pick up one of those Chinese Catholic suicide bombers we hear so much about, the whole thing's a bust.

Which is point two right there. The left's always justified its opposition to profiling on the grounds that they have supa-smart alternatives - all of which utterly failed in this case. No fly lists and no liquids allowed? No problem!

The precise details of how exactly the various governments screwed it up are still being revealed, but one thing's for sure: the only serious opposition the Boxer Bomber faced was from the random collection of civilians on the flight with him. Indeed, while the professionals were asleep at the wheel, the ordinary Joes - or Jakkes - attacked with such skill and effectiveness that I understand the hipsters want to have them all jailed.

Even more surprisingly for students of hipster rhetoric, these de facto citizen soldiers managed to achieve all they did without slaughtering any Sikh pharmacists or inadvertently imposing the Fourth Reich.

But that's not the best of it: in so far as this particular Man of No Affiliation had the background of a Nigerian David Cameron, that would tend to debunk just about every excuse hipsters have ever deployed for that completely random collection of individuals who keep getting caught up in terrorist incidents. Poverty? Disenfranchisement? Lack of educational opportunities? If this guy's a victim, who isn't?

2 comments:

Mr Grumpy said...

Surely you haven't forgotten that 9/11 was a cry of despair from the wretched of the earth? Why shouldn't a banker's sprog feel their pain too?

Anonymous said...

Profiling wouldn't have caught Exploding Pants Man. He was hustled onto the plane by a smartly dressed American in a dark suit at Schipol airport....despite having no passport and his father warning the US embassy that he was a terrorist threat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAtK7FFDukQ&feature=related

This was the classic case of problem-reaction-solution, designed to present the public with a perceived threat which they have created, only to then make a huge fuss in the media, before offering their solution....even further restrictions on our liberty, in the form of full body scanners in US airports.

[If you watch the CNN report in the above link, you will see a report from a passenger on Flight 253 who saw Pants Man being put on the plane by a "smartly dressed Indian man" who got him through security without a passport. Interesting how the pants bomber changed his plea to guilty the day before this guy was due to testify in his defence about seeing him being escorted through security & onto the plane with no passport].

"Those who give up their liberty for temporary security deserve neither" Benjamin Franklin