Comments on: Is airport security just a modern Maginot Line?

By: SteveInTransit

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:37:57 +0000

Oddly, the need for the Maginot Line as a defense against Germany was to defend themselves from the consequences of the war reparations from the Treaty of Versailles. Those reparations against the Germans were in turn retaliation for the reparations of the Franco-Prussian War against the French. President Wilson fought against reparations and lost- and then we had WWII and the Holocaust, and then the Cold War to follow.

Moral of the story? Attrition and retaliation is an endless cycle. No level of incarcerating and torturing terrorism suspects is going to change that, and no Chinese Wall or Maginot Line is going to keep them out. It’s time to try something different.

By: trevormcloughlin

trevormcloughlin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:27:14 +0000

It is also worth mentioning that it was France in the post-Versailles era that invaded and occupied the Ruhr, tried to stage a coup in the Rhineland, and prevented Vienna and Berlin from forming an economic union to fight-off the emerging Depression. To top it all off, it was France that declared war on Germany. It takes two to tango.

In short, France spent all its time focusing on Germany the enemy, rather than Germany the friend. Perhaps there is a similar lesson to be learned here, in terms of the West and the Rest.

By: Colin Horgan

Colin Horgan — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:09:59 +0000

Exactly.

By: SteveInTransit

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:21:41 +0000

I’ve always been fond of the phrase “security theater”. It’s all for show.
Military planers have always been accused of re-fighting the last war. Maginot was built over the memory of Verdun, the war fought by attrition between traditional enemies using conventional means, perhaps the bloodiest battle in human history. It’s a useful metaphor for overcompensating for prior failures, and one that central bureaucracies seem destined to repeat.

By: kramer

kramer — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:06:20 +0000

Exactly what I was thinking, right down to the metaphor. The French government could have done any number of things that would have cost less money and might have genuinely reduced the risk of war, like investing in their neighbor’s limping democracy and saving the Deutsche Mark from collapse, thus reducing poverty and diminishing the allure of fascist extremism in Germany. But that wasn’t the point: cynical French politicians wanted something to point to and say “We made this to keep you safe!” and a delusional population was glad to see it. And that’s more or less where we are right now.

By: Colin Horgan

Colin Horgan — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:25:36 +0000

Well said, and I’d like to think that everyone would benefit from reading a bit of Foucault, whether it’s on this or something like the meaning of torture…

By: papersdelvino

papersdelvino — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:10:56 +0000

Has no one in the TSA read Foucault? These security lines will only breed future modes of resistance. The TSA assumes a consistent terrorist—having tried the shoe-bomb, they conclude, so shall the terrorists try again. To say nothing of the swelling security lines or general inconvenience of flying, terrorists will forever locate and exploit nodes of resistance in the I. Berlin-esqu Hedgehog of TSA’s ineptitude.

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