Blame Game...

I have noticed a lot of complaining about the inconveniences and associated costs we have been subjected to since we started the GWOT. I have no doubt that a motivated terrorist will eventually break through all our layers of security and perpetrate some type of attack. And as usual the first thing people will do is look around for someone to blame for the security lapse. The furor over who is to blame for the security lapse will overshadow any blame actually being assigned to the perpetrator of the terrorist act. 

The folks who are responsible for protecting the citizens from these type of attacks are doing anything they can so when an attack actually succeeds they can say "but look at all the precautions we have taken!". The people who were complaining about the inconveniences and associated costs will suddenly forget their previous stance on security and demand even more security precautions which will lead to even more inconveniences and additional costs.  It will be a vicious circle unless we try an introduce some common sense into the situation.

 Personally I think we have probably overreacted to this whole GWOT thing. The one good thing that has come about is that peoples awareness of potential dangers has been raised. I'm pretty sure the next terrorist who stands up in an airplane and threatens the passengers with a box cutter will be taken out rather quickly by the passengers. This just happened the other day on a flight in Europe. A passenger was trying to gain access to the cockpit and was tackled by some other passengers and held tight until the plane landed.

Trying to create a world without dangers is a fools game. The best defense for any potential dangers is awareness, vigilance, and being willing to take personal responsibility for our actions. It's the "personal responsibility " piece that seems to be causing most of the problems today. It seems people are more concerned with blaming  someone for all of their problems instead of actually dealing with the problem. This attitude seems widespread in both individuals and groups and in return all we get is conflict.  Some recent blame games are:

• The government response to the flooding of New Orleans was pretty much all blamed on Bush when in fact there were quite a few other individuals who dropped the ball. The mayor of New Orleans did not organize an evacuation of the endangered areas. He had a fleet of school buses and 3 days warning to assist in moving people to safe ground but he did not. The Louisiana Governor waited 3 days to formally request military help from the federal government. The President, by law, cannot deploy any Federal troops to a State unless specifically requested. When the governor finally got around to asking she had troops on the ground in less than 2 days. She had 3 days of warning so why didn't she take care of this before the storm? There are others who also could have did their job better but if the Mayor and Senator had done their jobs a lot of suffering could have been avoided but at the time it was more important to milk the situation politically then actual help the  citizens.
• The US is currently the entire worlds whipping boy right now and is being blamed for every bad thing that has happened , is currently happening, or will happen around the world. Past decisions dating back to WWI are trotted out to start explaining the evil that is America. While the US has made some questionable decisions throughout it's history it has also did a little good here and there.
• When people start blaming the US for decisions made during the Cold War no one ever mentions the USSR's actions during the same time period. Most of the US decisions were made to counter similar moves made by the Soviets. 
•  When people talk about the US propping up dictators in South America nobody ever mentions that the US had to support someone and they usually backed the ones that could harm US interests the least. The US government is suppose to be looking out for US interests first and everyone else's interests come in second place.
• Every country on the planet are forced to make similar choices in their international relationships. The citizens in every country can always stand up and change their government if they want to. It's unfortunate that this can sometimes lead to violence and a lot of deaths but that is the way of change. In the end if the citizens are not ready to make the necessary sacrifices they only have themselves to blame for their problems.
• People like to bring up the US relationship with Iran and blame the US for deposing the Iranian leader in 1953 and backing the Shah. All you hear over and over is that the CIA forced the change but no one has ever said how they actually forced an entire political establishment to suddenly change.Where are the corroborating details to support such an accusation? It was the British who had a problem with Iran at the time. During the British empire last day's they had a lot of influence in Iran. English corporations had invested heavily in Iran's oil sector and the Iranians under Mossedegh wanted to nationalize the British corporate assets and write up new oil business contracts which would have cost Britain a lot of money. You have to remember that at the time the British had lost control of most of their former empire and needed the cash to help rebuild England after the war. Britain imposed a naval blockade against Iran to protest the nationalization of their assets and apparently MI6 asked the CIA to support them in this cause. I'm sure some money and backroom promises were passed around the Iranian political establishment to help force out Mossedegh but it was IRANIANS themselves who accepted the benefits and it was IRANIANS who implemented the actions.
• Iranians also love to blame the US for all of their current problems because it gets them off the hook of responsibility. The revolution in 1979 is the reason the country turned into a mullah driven theocracy. The students who led the takeover of the US embassy were to wrapped up in their little hostage drama and this allowed the Theocracy to take control. At the time of the revolution the theocracy supporters were in the minority. The Iranian political scene at the time had Liberals, Democrats, Monarchists, Progressives, Communists, and Theocratic parties. This political fragmentation and "hostage crisis" gave the theocracy the time needed to take control of the political situation during the "hostage crisis". Quite a few of the students were later sent to prison for fighting against the mullahs. This political fragmentation is similar to the situation in France during WWII. Their political state was so fragmented that they could not even work together to mount a defense against the invading Germans and Hitler pretty much walked into Paris.

I have left out a lot of the details in the above items but the items I did include are based in reality and worth a look.