(BTW, Chicago hosted the NATO summit a couple of months ago, and there were no surface-to-air missiles or anti-aircraft guns deployed, and no terrorist attacks.)
At least so far as you could see....
I'll also bet there were fighters on patrol just in case a plane happened to make an unscheduled detour from it's flight path in or out of O'Hare.....
Econoline wrote:
The way to prevent to prevent another 9/11 style attack is the way we have already chosen: make sure the terrorists don't get on the planes in the first place, and if they do anyway, make sure they can't take it over or harm either the plane or the passengers. Seems to be working quite well. I can't think of a single credible threat, or single previous attack on the Olympics, for which which these missiles would provide a defense.
While I aggree to a degree, these things work well until they don't work. When it doesn't work it here's no point in saying; "Well the things we were doing were working grand. Well working grand that is until the terrorists flew a jetliner into the Olympic stadium killing a hundred thousand people. So there was no point in having a contingency plan, until there was, by which time it was too late."
In Britain memories are still fresh of coordinated tube and bus bombings by homegrown Islamic radicals that killed 52 people on July 7, 2005, the day after London celebrated winning the Olympics.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Jim, I'm sure you're right, at least about the fighters, but my point was that in Chicago there was nothing obtrusive (other than the typical annoying street closures) and that worked just fine.
And Gob, if your point is that, at present, Britons would feel comforted rather than threatened by an obtrusive military presence in London, well, I can't argue that one way or the other, but I certainly don't think that attitude is a good thing.
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
— God@The Tweet of God
Nah mate, on the contrary, all the evidence shows that Londoners/Brits are exceedingly pissed off with having the six ground to air missile placements there. However, I’d rather them be pissed at that, than pissed they were not there when the airliner got hijacked and crashed.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Nick Buckles, chief executive of G4S said he deeply regretted the company's failure to recruit enough staff, which will see troops called in to fill in the gaps.
He said attempts to recruit 10,000 workers had been "complex" and that the firm had underestimated the scale of the task.
But when challenged about whether those recruited by G4S even spoke fluent English, Mr Buckles struggled to answer the question.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Saturday morning: "That is a difficult question to answer. They all have a right to work in the UK and have been vetted to very high standards."
When the question was repeated he admitted: "I can't say categorically."
Mr Buckley said there were probably roles within the security structure which did not involve direct contact with the public and said that he would look into the matter raised.
When he was asked the question in a later interview on Saturday, he told Sky News: "As part of the SIA (Security Industry Authority) training and as part of the SIA certification you have to be able to speak English. That's the standard for the UK security industry."
The chief executive said the shambles will cost the firm between £30 million and £50 million, including a fine of between £10 million and £20 million for its failure to deliver its contract.
The rest of the costs will be paid to the military for drafting in thousands of soldiers to man security at the Olympics.
He said the company only realised that "something had gone wrong" eight or nine days ago, when it became clear that the number of successful applicants in the recruitment process was not high enough.
Mr Buckley said Olympic organisers and the Government were aware that the company had planned to "compress" training, recruitment and vetting of staff into the last seven or eight weeks before the opening ceremony.
He insisted the decision to leave so much of the process to the last few weeks before the events was not an attempt to cut costs but driven by the fact the company was recruiting from groups such as students who were not available for training at an earlier stage.
Asked if he had let Britain down, Mr Buckley said: "I accept that we underestimated the task of supplying staff for the Olympics and we deeply regret that."
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
That article points out an additional challenge that the Brits face in security that we wouldn't have for an Olympics held here, and that justifies an even higher standard of vigilance than might be needed in the US...
We have border security issues, but they are minimal when compared to the challenges presented by the loosey goosey standards of travel throughout the EU; the Brits aren't just dependent on their own measures to stop terrorists at the point of entry; they have to be reliant on those countries in the EU with even the weakest standards, since once they enter another EU country, (like Greece for example) they can then travel freely to the UK.
Add to this the fact that Great Britain, (to say nothing of the other EU countries) has a far more radicalized resident Islamic population than we have here, and it seems to me that the security measures they have taken are entirely appropriate....
