Sensible Erection | High-ranking Pakistani military officials leaving in protest

Thursday, 2 September 2010

High-ranking Pakistani military officials leaving in protest

quote [ A delegation of senior Pakistani military officials visiting the United States for a major defense conference headed home in protest Tuesday night after they said they were interrogated and rudely treated by security officials at Dulles International Airport. ]

Let's hope the TSA and Dulles security get their asses handed to them by the Pentagon.

Elsewhere: Oil rig explodes in Gulf of Mexico.

[politics] [by f00m@nB@r@3:35pmGMT] [+10 WTF]

Comments

Didel said @ 4:28pm GMT on 2nd Sep
I have to say, half the problem I have with the TSA and the like has to do with respect and politeness. It's one thing to be security and to check everyone and everything that's going through the airport, but it's quite another to treat every single person like a criminal and be rude to everyone. If you're going to inconvenience everyone over your incompetent and impotent security protocols, you should at least be polite about it.

ralfmaximus said @ 4:58pm GMT on 2nd Sep
YOUR PAPERS, PLEASE.

Nope. Still sucks.

maryyugo said @ 5:07pm GMT on 2nd Sep
I'm sure that happens but in the few flights I took in this last 12 month period, I've found nothing but fast moving lines (as fast as reasonable considering what they have to do) and calm, polite people doing the screening. They're not smiling and friendly but it's not a bar or lunch counter and all I expect is professional behavior and efficiency. And that's a lot to expect for what they get paid and where they probably come from educationally.

cdwilli1 said @ 5:37pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Yeah, me too. I have traveled all over much of the world in the last 12 months and the TSA, while fantastically irritating and somewhat irrelevant, have been polite in the main and even friendly/joking sometimes.

The equivalent in other countries varies, for example India: armed guys who search your stuff no matter what. Serious looking but not hostile. UK: joking folks but serious about what they are doing.

We are not better or worse really in my experience.

ralfmaximus said @ 5:48pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
About 12 years ago I was switching planes in Paris, and emptied my pockets to go through the metal detector.

An older French security agent reaches into the bowl and extracts my keychain multi-tool/knife, holding it up between thumb and forefinger with an absolutely SHOCKED expression. He mimed outrage, literally shaking his finger at me, before handing it back conspiratorily. He winked at me and sent me on my way.

Ah, those were the days.

Bob Denver said @ 11:55pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Yeah, I used to travel with a (then) legal pocket knife with a three inch blade. I'd hold it up (closed of course) and tell the security person that I'd like to surrender it to the captain for pick up at the other end. There was never a problem and often the captain would hand back the knife when I got on board. Now they just confiscate anything pointy...

f00m@nB@r said @ 12:26am GMT on 3rd Sep
MY PENIS!

f00m@nB@r said @ 6:23pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Their attitude, I've noticed, seems to have improved greatly.

Krutz said @ 6:03pm GMT on 2nd Sep
It's nice if you get through quickly, but you're in the Justice Scalia Zone for deciding if there's a problem or not: If it doesn't happen to you (getting arrested, having your privacy violated, etc.), it's not a problem and you can judge accordingly.

maryyugo said @ 6:40pm GMT on 2nd Sep
The more cooperative and polite and QUIET/CALM you remain, the quicker it goes. If you get tense or argue, they can only wonder about what you have to hide and what they have to do to find it.

Mr. Langosta said @ 8:20pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Say, didn't you used to roll with Andre the Giant?

quaint said @ 9:36pm GMT on 2nd Sep
In other news - rape only hurts if you fight it.

f00m@nB@r said @ 6:22pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
Yeah, things seem to be moving quicker, now.

Though I did get pulled aside, once. One of the TSA officers jokingly (?) said it was because of my t-shirt. They were all pleasant about it.

This is a change from, say, a couple years ago, where every officer was sullen and seemed to love "jangling their keys".

In 2003 or so, I was in 1st class on a flight, and a very distraught Latino man was on his cellphone to his wife. He said that he had just been strip searched. He had no discernible accent. If you want to know why I keep saying "flying while brown", that incident and many, many other similar ones I have witnessed, is why.

Jewbacchus said @ 7:04pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Concurred. Every brown kid I know has been pulled aside at least once. If the fwb penalty is 10x more likely to be pulled over, I've also found that having a beard and being semitic is around 2-3x.

f00m@nB@r said @ 8:01pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Funny]
Sort of ironic that they can't tell the difference between an Arab and a Jew.

Forsaken_One said @ 9:28pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
There are many variables when it comes to getting through security in American airports, which make anecdotal evidence largely useless.

For example, flying out of SFO I've found the TSA to be (mostly) reasonable and polite, whereas flying through JFK I've found them to make up rules on the spot, rules that the TSA later acknowledged weren't real after a complaint letter was sent, and generally deal with "problems" by yelling louder.

Part of that is because SFO keeps some of its own hiring authority. But there's also what color your skin is, what kinds of clothes you're wearing, how the pay scale of the TSA is compared to the average pay scale of that city in, who you're traveling with, how busy they are when you're going through, how busy the airport is in general, and all the way down to how the agent's day was and how much they want to piss on someone else.

When it comes down to it I believe the issue (aside from the pointless security theater that creates stupid rules like "no liquids") is that the TSA agents are given too much authority alongside too little training and too little pay.

That and when Americans hear the words "safety" or "security" they'll generally put up with anything without a second thought.

Ronin.ca said @ 10:00pm GMT on 2nd Sep
SFO = good. LAX = shite.

But part of that is because LAX = airport that was built for 1/5th of the traffic it gets.

maximumtodd said @ 11:19pm GMT on 2nd Sep
You obviously haven't been through O'hara.

sanepride said @ 11:47pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Maybe you haven't flown from an airport where they've started using the new stupid full-body scanners. I have and I can tell you not only do they make the security check waits much longer, but they are as useless as they are invasive. Oh yeah, they see through your clothes, but yet when you go through you have to empty your pockets of everything, including your paper boarding pass, and take off your belt (even if it's not metal). You hold your arms over your head -hoping your pants don't fall down- in a chamber that looks a lot like the disintegration machine from the old Star Trek episode, then you have to wait while they examine the image.
And here's the stupid part - why do you have to empty your pockets? It can see through clothes, but it cant' see through a fucking paper boarding pass? WTF? Just thinking about it gets me angry. And oh yeah, you do have the option not to go through, as long as you're willing to submit to a thorough pat-down.
Seriously, fuck the TSA.

Naruki said @ 11:01am GMT on 3rd Sep
Then Randall has an idea for you!

Naruki said @ 3:46pm GMT on 3rd Sep
Subtle revenge mod, erich. Nobody will notice.

blackpsypher said @ 4:54pm GMT on 2nd Sep
That's great. Build up a blind fear in the ignorant masses of the unknown middle-eastern groups that 'might' have nuclear capabilities so the same aforementioned ignorant masses can blindly piss off the middle-eastern groups that actually do have them.

clumsy_juggler said @ 5:09pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Great way to treat allies. What people outside of Tampa don't realize is how many countries have been helping out with Afghanistan since the beginning of the war.

-_- said @ 5:41pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Outside of Tampa?

theolypse said @ 7:04pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Is Dulles in Tampa?

f00m@nB@r said @ 7:59pm GMT on 2nd Sep
For some values of Tampa.

clumsy_juggler said @ 7:33pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Centcom is in Tampa. The base there is where the headquarters for the war in Afghanistan is. Locals tend to see the members of other military forces around town. When I was posted there about 20+ countries were represented. I don't know the current number but it is a lot more than just NATO members.

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 6:58pm GMT on 2nd Sep
I can't think of a better target for inspection and scrutiny than high ranking pakistani military officials.

Jewbacchus said @ 7:05pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Or a better target for diplomatic handling.

theolypse said @ 7:15pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:-1 Bad]
NK

theolypse said @ 7:19pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Yeah, nevermind. The word "intractable" applies.

Bob Denver said @ 12:18am GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:1 Informative]
Ravi Tikoo of Globtik Tankers (back in the '70's Globtik built the largest in the world) offered to help set up a national merchant marine service, for free. He was treated like he was an illegal immigrant, even though he had arrived by private aircraft. After two hours of bullshit, he told the supervisor to inform the prime minister that he had withdrawn his offer and was returning home. That maltreatment has cost the country billions. This will likely cost the US a very great deal...and all because of a few jingoistic idiots waving their big dicks.

EPT said @ 8:54pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Pakistani officials said they received apologies from Pentagon and Centcom officials.

Unless the Pentagon or Centcom are in charge of the TSA, their apology is meaningless.

Seriously though, the one country that is needed on-side is pakistan, otherwise you lose access to Afghanistan to fight that war. Assuming you want to fight that war, of course.

Spleen23 said @ 10:25pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
Man, it's too bad the military don't have thier own airfields to bring people in on to avoid dealing with this bullshit.

sanepride said @ 11:16pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Nobody will get their asses handed to them. The TSA is not accountable to the Pentagon. In fact they are apparently not accountable to anyone.

bruceski said @ 1:12am GMT on 3rd Sep
There's official accountability, and then there's powerful people asking their friends to make your life miserable as a favor. Something like this, it's probably be a return favor for dogsitting or something equally mundane.

sanepride said @ 2:47am GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
Whatever 'official accountability' there may be is woefully inadequate. This is an endemic problem with agencies hurriedly formed, re-formed and hobbled together under the nascent DHS in the security panic that followed 9/11/01. Agencies like TSA and ICE were given wide-reaching authority with little to no direct oversight. Their mission and strategies are purely reflexive and reactive, and they seem to be able to institute incredibly invasive and aggressive procedures with virtually no basis in actual effectiveness. Since their review processes are mostly internal, we have to rely on their own assessments of their success, which - no surprise here - are nearly always upbeat and self-congratulatory.

zenviper said @ 5:58am GMT on 3rd Sep
You all do realize they were PAKISTANI right????

Right????

Bob Denver said @ 6:27am GMT on 3rd Sep
Yes...and? They are an ally of the US...and they were here invited by the US government and her military to be their guests.

Okay not to put too fine a point on it...to what are you alluding?

nbob said @ 7:25am GMT on 3rd Sep
I think he was joking?