Blame Culture
The video from Washington Dulles airport that shows the terrorists being security checked has been released. You can see it here.
This morning on 5 Live a woman representing a group called Skyscraper Safety in the US was interviewed about the video. When asked who was responsible she then went on to say that culpability was evident at all levels from the top of Government all the way down to the security guards at the airport and the cabin and cockpit crew of the hijacked airlines. She had lost her son in one of the Twin Towers, and so is understandably annoyed and upset with the events that unfurled that day. I would feel the same. But surely blame cannot be apportioned across the board as she stated? Ok, Intelligence didn’t spot the plots that unfurled that day, but the Americans have the best Intelligence Service and Intelligence Technology in the world, so if they didn’t see the threat or correlate the intelligence then what hope does anyone else have? She blamed the builders and architects of the Twin Towers branding them as “deathtraps”. Why? Because they weren’t built to withstand the full impact of two bloody great airliners being ploughed into them at 500 mph? Is any building anywhere built to that standard? Of course not! When they were built I doubt anyone would have suspected such an act, and even an accident would have been highly unlikely as any pilot of a distressed jet would ditch into the sea before ploughing into a building. Maybe now we have to make these considerations and it’s bad that we have had to witness such a thing before it became an issue. But blaming builders and architects is a bit strong – if a terrorist detonates a mini nuclear device in the middle of London and flattens most of it are we going to berate the likes of Christopher Wren, Norman Foster or Richard Rogers for not designing and building their creations to withstand thermo-nuclear blast? We wouldn’t, but I can’t be sure that the Yanks wouldn’t.
Blaming the airlines for not having secure cockpits was another target. Hmmm, well for years people have happily asked to view the cockpit, apparently without causing an issue so why would the pilots/airlines have thought any different on that day? They had not been given any warnings, or put on heightened alert. They didn’t know what they didn’t know. In fact I’m damn sure that when things kicked off they did their utmost to prevent anything from happening. The security staff at the airport were probably just going through the motions after years of checking people thanklessly and being told not to be overly aggressive in order to make customers happy and not prevent the free flow of dollars into airline and airport executives pockets. I watched a programme last week about a Peruvian aircraft that crashed near Lima because the aircraft maintenance guy who cleaned and checked the outside had left some duct tape over the pitot sensors (which detect air speed and height). A 5 quid piece of tape killed 77 people. The guy who left the tape on the outside of the craft was jailed for 7 years. He was paid around $2 per hour. That’s right - you pay someone shit money and then put them in a position to make such a fatal error. That’s the analogy to the security staff at Washington. Being de-motivated and poorly paid does not lead to vigilant or professional staff.
I guess my point is that although mistakes were made that day and perhaps before it, they were genuine and honest mistakes. No-one could have foreseen what happened that day and I doubt we could foresee it now, even in the current climate of heightened awareness.
Why am I talking about this? Because next week I fly to the States and quite frankly the whole security thing worries the shit out of me.
Later, Grocerjack
