Hello, good-by and thanks for nothing

                                                                        By: A. H. Krieg 08/24/06

An Open letter to Bush, Blair & Chertoff

Gentlemen,

More than ever I am convinced that you think that the world is populated by people as stupid as you are. All the past rubbish on the war on terrorism can be discounted by the fact that neither England’s or America’s borders have been made secure, which is certainly the first step in making any nation secure. If that is not enough then how about all the fabrications and lies about WMD’s.

While I am no chemist I did have organic and inorganic chemistry in prep school, where one of our projects was to make nitro-glycerin. The claims stemming from the Blair government that was then repeated in DC that terrorists were planning to mix two substances to produce Nitro in an aircraft toilet is so far beyond ridiculous that its originators withdrew it only two days after having produced it. The obvious reason is that it is impossible to do this in the toilet of an aircraft in flight.

It all reminds me of the fabulous successes touted by Mr. Chertoff in stopping illegal immigration. We went from one million, per quarter, to 996,980 per quarter, big deal. We stopped 2,010 in the first two weeks of August. That works out to an annual total of 12,060 per year or just under 1% of the annualized total number. All this goes along with the recent prosecution of two Federal border patrol agents for shooting at an illegal immigrant that was smuggling hundreds of pounds of marijuana in a van who was then released by a judge only to be caught again smuggling heroin. Where is Chertoff when you need him?

The story then quickly changed to a new one, mainly that terrorist’s now preferred the explosive triacetone triperoxide  (TATP). To produce this explosive which is a liquid it is possible to premix a concoction of hydrogen peroxide, and acetone. And then at a later date (in the airplane laboratory as stated) mix this substance with sulfuric acid. There are three basic problems with this scenario. Firstly the acid must be mixed in one drop at a time while keeping the hydrogen peroxide/acetone mixture strongly refrigerated. Secondly is the fact that this mixing process produces an extremely toxic gas that must be continuously ventilated or it will kill the chemist. Thus it is a very difficult process in a laboratory and is factually impossible to do in an aircraft toilet. Thirdly the process to produce even a small amount would take many hours and what aircrew would allow someone to stay in a toilet for hours. The required temperature that must be maintained is 50 degrees Fahrenheit and the full cycle of mixing takes anywhere from 24 hours to several days depending on quantity.  Once the mixture is completed it will develop (grow) crystallization (a time-consuming process) that is then harvested while the remaining liquid is discarded. To cap the issue the crystallized powder is very dangerous, chemically unstable, and explosive and likely to self ignite unless it is stored in a refrigerator at 50 degrees F or less. To make an explosive of it needs to be packaged in some manner or it will freely burn off just like gunpowder.

Now let me get to the point last week I flew from NYC JFK airport to Tampa International. While we were told that no liquids would be allowed in the cabin we were told that prescription medicines were permitted. I had five prescriptions that I did not want to place in my luggage (possible loss) that I carried. Two of these were clearly marked tubes on of 1000 cc and one of 5000 cc of pastes (salve) they were immediately confiscated as dangerous substances with which I might be able to make explosives.

This then brings us to the inevitable point of this entire article. The quality of the employees hired by Homeland Security. I have noted that a substantial percentage of these people speak with an accent, and are therefore not native born. Of the rest over 90% are minorities without proper intelligent supervision. Programmed robots could without any doubt do a better more thorough job of screening passengers and could replace these people. The fact that Acetone as well as the other chemicals involved produces very distinct unpleasant odors must not be overlooked and neither should the fact that Homeland Security employees are so stupid that they cannot even be trained to carry out such a simple task as smelling the liquids and toothpastes.  Furthermore there are numerous restrictions of products and items that are senseless. Cigarette lighters are prohibited; this under the guise that such a lighter could be used to ignite a fuse not wanting to increase their problems I would say that batteries to set off a electric ignition system would be far superior. In fact I don’t even know where you could purchses a fire fuse ignited detonator as they have almost exclusively been replaced with electric and electronic hardware.

Homeland Security action in arrests of illegal immigrants have produced the following results. Chertoff told us that 400 terrorists had been arrested, then touting this as a success. Unfortunately 200 were immediately released for lack of any credible evidence of the remaining 200 about 180 were charged with minor immigration violations and sequestered to jails for less than one year. About 18 were charged, but the botched legal teams of Homeland Security resulted in a mistrial, discharge of several individuals and minor conviction of the remaining three or four. So in fact 300 million Americans have been inconvenienced for the conviction of less than six individuals not one of which was directly implicates in any terrorist act against us. Some fantastic record, wouldn’t you say?

It appears to me that politicians and judges strong suite is not in the sciences, and that they would be well advised to hire some people that are. It is also evident from the performance of Homeland Security as well as FEMA that Mr. Chertoff is in way over his head and should at this point before any further embarrassment to him or the nation retire. As for Blair and Bush both are history as in all probability are their political parties.

This alone will not fix the matter; only the act of the electorates, of these two nations, in soundly defeating both for their dominant parties will bring a resolution to the dilemma.    

A.H. Krieg’s books are available worldwide and on www.a2zPublications.com

Let’s bring back good old common sense!

A.H. Krieg’s books are available worldwide and on www.a2zPublications.com

Let’s bring back good old common sense!