Tough Talkin' Tancredo

Andrew Sullivan doesn't like this Tom Tancredo advertisement:



He compares Tancredo to Rudy, characterizing this tactic as one favored by "small men in search of a balcony," his favorite tag for Rudy. Sorry, but this ad actually has a couple of things going for it. The first is honesty: it uses the phrase "Islamic terrorists," identifying the likely source and motivation for a major terrorist attack. Give Tancredo credit for that, at least.

The second is that Tancredo's proposed security measure -- better border security -- actually has some likelihood of achieving beneficial results. Unlike, say, harassing innocent photographers, or the idiotic security theater at airports, it is actually possible that potential terrorists might seep through our lax border security and commit terrorists acts.

Of course, there's no particular reason for likely Islamic terrorists to go to the trouble of swimming the Rio Grande, or risk heat stroke in the Arizona desert, when they can just get a student visa, like the 9/11 terrorists did. The Bush administration has done all sorts of really stupid things in response to the 9/11 attacks -- undermining the liberty of millions of Americans. Denying student visas to Saudi and Egyptian nationals would have been both simple and effective, and it would neither have expanded government power nor invaded the rights of Americans. So of course the Bush Administration didn't even consider it.

Rudy, Toughness, and Torture

A friend of mine sent me the link to this Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by ostensibly-liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz decries what he considers to be a "pacifistic stance" among the Democrats, and he argues that Rudy Giuliani appears to be doing well in the polls because "the post- 9/11 Rudy conveys a sense of toughness, of no-nonsense defense of America."

Well, maybe. But to me the post-9/11 Rudy conveys something else: the puffed chest and macho posturing of a small, fearful man. I don't think his attitude conveys strength and toughness; I think it conveys fear, weakness, and paranoia -- the same sort of fear that leads an Amtrak employee to become overwrought about an elderly Japanese photographer. Rudy's message: be afraid all the time. Sacrifice our honor and our most important values.

When asked whether waterboarding was torture, Rudy said it was, the way it was described by the "liberal media," but he seemed to leave open the option that there could be some forms of waterboarding that wouldn't count. Well, Jonathan Adler at Volokh links to this article, an article written by somebody who was an instructor at SERE school, a man who has undergone waterboarding and performed it on American soldiers in training. A real tough guy, one who doesn't need to engage in Rudy-style macho-posturing to prove his manhood. He says, simply, "when performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt." This article has been cited extensively in the blogosphere, so you may have seen it already, but this is a passage that I think every American ought to read:

We live at a time where Americans, completely uninformed by an incurious media and enthralled by vengeance-based fantasy television shows like “24”, are actually cheering and encouraging such torture as justifiable revenge for the September 11 attacks. Having been a rescuer in one of those incidents and personally affected by both attacks, I am bewildered at how casually we have thrown off the mantle of world-leader in justice and honor. Who we have become? Because at this juncture, after Abu Ghraieb and other undignified exposed incidents of murder and torture, we appear to have become no better than our opponents.

With regards to the waterboard, I want to set the record straight so the apologists can finally embrace the fact that they condone and encourage torture.

History’s Lessons Ignored

Before arriving for my assignment at SERE, I traveled to Cambodia to visit the torture camps of the Khmer Rouge. The country had just opened for tourism and the effect of the genocide was still heavy in the air. I wanted to know how real torturers and terror camp guards would behave and learn how to resist them from survivors of such horrors. I had previously visited the Nazi death camps Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. I had met and interviewed survivors of Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Magdeburg when I visited Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. However, it was in the S-21 death camp known as Tuol Sleng, in downtown Phnom Penh, where I found a perfectly intact inclined waterboard. Next to it was the painting on how it was used. It was cruder than ours mainly because they used metal shackles to strap the victim down, and a tin flower pot sprinkler to regulate the water flow rate, but it was the same device I would be subjected to a few weeks later.

On a Mekong River trip, I met a 60-year-old man, happy to be alive and a cheerful travel companion, who survived the genocide and torture … he spoke openly about it and gave me a valuable lesson: “If you want to survive, you must learn that ‘walking through a low door means you have to be able to bow.’” He told his interrogators everything they wanted to know including the truth. They rarely stopped. In torture, he confessed to being a hermaphrodite, a CIA spy, a Buddhist Monk, a Catholic Bishop and the son of the king of Cambodia. He was actually just a school teacher whose crime was that he once spoke French. He remembered “the Barrel” version of waterboarding quite well. Head first until the water filled the lungs, then you talk.

Is that what we wish to become?

Now, it does seem that waterboarding has not been used particularly often -- at least if recent reports are to be believed. This ABC News report claims that only three people have been waterboarded by the CIA, and it has not been used at all since 2003. As Julian Sanchez, observed, you can't have it both ways: you can't claim that the technique is vital to national security when it hasn't been used at all since 2003. The ABC report indicates that, after being waterboarded, Khalid Sheik Mohammed confessed. Of course, we know we can make people confess to pretty much anything if we torture them. He probably is guilty of at least some of the things to which he confessed, but the hard truth is that the fact that he confessed under torture tells us nothing.

And because of his treatment, it is now virtually impossible to try him in a real court. If we had treated him in a humane manner, we could have tried him before a real court, with real lawyers, a real judge, and a real lawyer. And the result would have been real justice. Would some have refused to believe he had gotten a fair trial? Sure. But for those who could be swayed, giving him a fair trial would have been an important symbolic act.

But what about the favorite example from those who wish to justify torture: the ticking time bomb scenario? Professor Dershowitz discusses this situation:

Consider, for example, the contentious and emotionally laden issue of the use of torture in securing preventive intelligence information about imminent acts of terrorism--the so-called "ticking bomb" scenario. I am not now talking about the routine use of torture in interrogation of suspects or the humiliating misuse of sexual taunting that infamously occurred at Abu Ghraib. I am talking about that rare situation described by former President Clinton in an interview with National Public Radio:

"You picked up someone you know is the No. 2 aide to Osama bin Laden. And you know they have an operation planned for the United States or some European capital in the next three days. And you know this guy knows it. Right, that's the clearest example. And you think you can only get it out of this guy by shooting him full of some drugs or waterboarding him or otherwise working him over."

First of all, it never happens. You never know enough to know there's a ticking time bomb and that you have the person who knows where it is. If you know for sure that it's the guy and you know about the bomb, you probably know all sorts of other things which are likely to lead you to the bomb. So why spend all this time discussing a scenario that never happens?

Second, the ticking time bomb is the scenario in which torture is least likely to work. If the terrorist can ever hold out, or construct a convincing lie, this is the time he will do it. Because he knows that he just has to last a limited period of time, and then the bomb will go off.

I am curious to know how far people are willing to take this. Suppose, for example, that the terrorist has a child. We grab Terrorist Mastermind at home with his child. And somebody gets the bright idea of making the Mastermind watch as we crush his eleven-year-old son's testicles -- something John Yoo claims the President has the inherent power to do. So do we do it? Just how far do we go?

Let me make a somewhat different argument. If there were an imminent attack on America, and you could stop it at the cost of your own life, would you do it? I don't know for a fact that I would sacrifice my own life, but I certainly hope I would. And I assume our CIA and FBI agents, and members of our military would make the same choice. Likewise, I hope that they would sacrifice their freedom in order to prevent a terrorist attack on the United States. So here's my proposal: if the ticking time bomb ever happens, the CIA or FBI agents or whoever can torture the mastermind and then, after the attack is foiled, turn themselves in, plead guilty, and accept punishment. If your answer is that they are not really willing to do that, well, I suspect it is because they don't believe that torture is really necessary. And if a President believes it is really necessary, well, let him (or her) authorize it, and the resign from office and accept the legal consequences.

I think that we can defend our country from terrorists without throwing away our honor. We don't need to torture people, and we sacrifice something about what makes America great when we do so. Yes, be tough on terror. But do so in a manner that is consistent with American values.

From The Land of the Brave To A Nation of Bedwetters

My buddy Sully links to this article about a tourist's run-in with security conscious officials. At the outset, I want to add the same caveat I suggested in the case of the Jena 6 when I first began to read about the case. It is possible that this story is a hoax, or that it's been exaggerated, or that salient facts have been omitted. Of course it would be a good idea to have independent verification, to hear more accounts, to know more facts.

Still, assuming the article is accurate, it's a horrible story: an elderly Japanese tourist who speaks no English is riding an Amtrak train from New York to Boston. He rides along, threatens or bothers nobody, and then does the unforgivable: he starts to take pictures. Well, we can't have that, can we? Sensing danger, the heroic Amtrak conductor swings into action:

The train is a half hour west of New Haven when the conductor, having finished her original rounds, reappears. She moves down the aisle, looks, stops between our seats, faces the person taking pictures. “Sir, in the interest of national security, we do not allow pictures to be taken of or from this train.” He starts, “I…….” but, without English, his response trails off into silence. The conductor, speaking louder, forcefully: “Sir, I will confiscate that camera if you don’t put it away.” Again, little response. “Sir, this is a security matter! We cannot allow pictures.” She turns away abruptly and, as she moves down the aisle, calls over her shoulder, in a very loud voice, “Put. It. Away!” He packs his camera.

And it gets worse! When the train arrives in New Haven, two police officers enter the train and remove him, apparently because he "refused" an order he couldn't understand. Hopefully these dim bulbs managed to find somebody who spoke Japanese, determine that he wasn't a terrorist, and send him on his way.

I got in a bit of trouble in the comments a while back when I said that some (though not all) TSA screeners were morons, and I suppose that I may offend an Amtrak employee here, but I don't really care. I don't know whether the "policy" against photography from speeding trains is an actual Amtrak rule, or merely a policy put in place by an idiosyncratic conductor on a power trip. I suppose the theory behind it is that terrorists could scout locations for attacks from the train and use photographs in their planning.

But this is utterly idiotic. What are the chances that terrorists would actually scout locations and take photographs from a speeding train? Wouldn't they be far more likely to get off the train and take pictures of their targets? And how many terrorists use photographs anyway? This policy is beyond stupid. It has no possible intelligent defense.

As to this conductor, if the policy is a real policy rather than simply her own personal policy, then she may not have had any choice but to enforce it. However, even if she had no choice, she didn't have to be an asshole about it. She didn't have to call the cops on a guy who obviously didn't speak English and who represented no threat. She didn't have to go into that whole "this is a security matter!" act. She could have been nice about the whole thing.

I know nothing about this woman, or her life. Maybe she is just somebody who hates her job and takes it out on the passengers, whom she resents. Maybe she's just a small person who gets to feel big by pushing people around. But one of the worst aspects of the War On Terror and the security theater it has engendered is that it gives uniformed bullies a chance to throw their weight around. When we give petty officials the power to enforce arbitrary and stupid rules, it is hardly surprising that many of them become abusive.

I sometimes think that our friends on the left get overwrought, and maybe I am a bit overwrought myself, but I have to ask: what kind of a people have we become? What kind of country is this? Is this the America we want to live in? Do we have to be afraid all the time, so afraid that we put in place stupid security measures against phantom dangers?

Let me make a radical suggestion: let's stop being afraid. The object of terrorism, after all, is to inspire fear. I am fine with putting in place reasonable precautions, with hunting down the folks behind attacks on the United States and killing them. But we can't sacrifice what we are as a country. This constant, unreasoning, debilitating official paranoia just has to go.

More Thoughts on Torture

In my last post on this topic, I argued that the government ought not be given the power to torture people because, if the 20th century has shown us nothing, it is that giving the state the power to torture people is just a really bad idea.

In that post, I discussed a dinner conversation with an old friend, whom I will refer to as "CC" for "Conservative Catholic, regarding this issue, and I used that conversation as a springboard to my discussion. Well, CC has since e-mailed me to clarify his position, and he has suggested that I misquoted him. Of course I misquoted him! I was too busy swilling down a really nice wine to take notes.

In any case, his position is probably more nuanced than I gave it credit for being--- more nuanced than mine, for that matter -- and in his e-mail he raised some interesting points. Here's what he said:

I am generally against "torture," but, frankly, the label "torture" fails to capture the issue. The challenge the government faces is to obtain most effectively critical intelligence information as rapidly as possible. I recall that you endorse the notion that the government may inflict "mild discomfort" but not "torture" in order to accomplish this goal. There are not, however, bright lines between what some may call "mild discomfort" and "torture." Let's take an example: sleep deprivation. Women of infants are sleep deprived typically because they are taking care of their children. Are they tortured? Mildly discomforted?

The reference to "mild discomfort" is, I think, the result of CC's misunderstanding of my position, or perhaps my own lack of clarity. The point which I was making to him when I used those words is that I don't consider some of the things I've read about to be "torture" as that word is used in English. For example, I don't think it's "torture" to smear somebody with menstrual blood, or to make them watch you pee on the Koran, or for a female interrogator to strip off her shirt and parade around in a bra. Some folks on the left claim this kind of thing is tortue, and I think they're nuts. There are people who if you put detainees up in the Ritz will insist that only the Four Seasons would be good enough. I'm not one of them.

I can even agree with CC that it can be difficult to draw bright lines -- there are indeed grey areas. But techniques like waterboarding, forcing people to stand in "stress positions" for hours, sensory deprivation and waterboarding aren't in any gray area -- they're torture. Sure, to some extent women caring for children are slightly sleep deprived. But those women are allowed to take naps between feedings, and to get some sleep some of the time. Likewise, some people work standing for hours on end. But they aren't forced to work standing in a "stress position" designed to produce agony. Here's a hint: most of these techniques were pioneered by totalitarian regimes. Maybe that tells us something.

As CC sees it, there are actually two issues:

The "torture" issue presents two real sub-issues: (a) whether "torture" is an effective means of obtaining intelligence; and (b) whether "torture" violates some human right against cruel or inhumane treatment. As to (a), I offer no opinion. I agree that the governments hould not use any interrogation or intelligence-gathering technique that is not effective, but, then, only sadistic people would suggest otherwise.

Even sadistic people won't say otherwise overtly, but that doesn't rule out sadism as a potential motive. I certainly can't prove this, but to a great extent I think that the Cheney/Addington/Yoo/Tenet position on torture is indeed motivated by sadism. Oh, not sexual sadism of the whips-and-chains variety, but a desire to hurt people, or a callous indifference to their suffering. The desire to inflict suffering is strong enough that it predisposes the advocates of harsh measures to believe that those measures are necessary and effective. This may explain the popularity of TV shows like 24, as well as the ubiquitous ticking time bomb scenario. And this is why I will never, ever vote for Rudy: at the end of the day I think he wants to hurt people.

The human rights question is more difficult and depends upon a variety of factors: the gravity and imminence of the harm; the information sought; the type of interrogation technique being considered; and a reasonable likelihood for success. There may be other considerations. But I do not believe there is a bright line, especially in times of war when, as now, the national security is threatened. This may come down to a largely utilitarian calculation of choosing among a variety of bad options.

Well, as a religious believer it seems to me that you probably ought to apply a categorical command against torture. You do, after all, believe that Christ (whom you consider to be a manifestation of God, right?) was tortured by the Romans. This ought to lead you to a certain sympathy for the victims of torture, regardless of whether it works.

That said, I agree that torture ought to be subjected to a largely utilitarian calculation. However, I think that the resolution of those calculations is actually pretty easy. Torture is an information-gathering technique which may or may not even work, and if it does work produces information which may or may not be particularly reliable. Its benefits are dubious and relatively short-term.

The immediate cost is a loss of credibility of the United States, a massively-reduced level of soft-power and ability to exercise moral leadership. It means we have a far more difficult time complaining if our own people or our allies' people are mistreated by an enemy. I'm not a huge fan of the Bush/Clinton notion of war as social work, but if the idea is to remake Afghanistan and Iraq into liberal democracies, might not our own conduct have a certain teaching function? "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" isn't exactly the lesson we were trying to impart. In addition, while you may not think that the pain inflicted on terrorists or their sympathizers ought to count, the torture inflicted upon innocent people tortured by mistake certainly ought to count. And then there is the psychological cost borne by the torturers who have to live with what they've done in subsequent years.

And you have the huge potential down-side of people who work for your security services getting used to the idea that they are allowed to torture people. While terrorism is indeed a danger, a state with security services acclimated to the idea of torturing people is a far greater danger in the long term. If you say that "terrorists" can be tortured, it's a pretty easy step to define one's political opponents as being terrorists.

My friend CC, however, doesn't see it that way. He seems to think that I underestimate the danger associated with Islamic terrorists:

The notion that the "terrorists" are weak is generally accurate in the conventional military sense, but there is the possibility, at least reported, of suitcase nukes obtained via the black market, suicide bombers, and the like that could result in large numbers of casualties. The real danger with Islamic terrorism is that (1) the terrorists seek to kill as many Americans as possible, including all men, women, and children (including my wife and children and you and [the Main Squeeze]; and (2) the terrorists are willing to carry out their murderous schemes by suicidal means. This presents almost unimaginable possibilities for mass murder and must, unfortunately, affect the analysis of the types of interrogation techniques that are possible, at least with respect to those that are effective.

First, the danger of terrorists getting a nuke, "suitcase" or otherwise, is pretty small, for the reasons articulated by Gregory Cochran in his 2 Blowhards interview. And if we are worried about that, the best way to prevent it is not to go around torturing terrorists; it's to work with the Russians and the Chinese to keep the supply of nuclear weapons bottled up tight.

That leaves "conventional" suicide terrorism. And he's right that terrorists can indeed kill a lot of people if they are so inclined. In fact, we can imagine all sorts of low-tech things that terrorists could do that are almost impossible to stop -- drive around medium-sized cities lobbing Molotov cocktails out the window of their vehicle, for example. But the number of people who are actually willing to do that seems to be fairly small. The chances of CC's kids, or my Main Squeeze being killed by conventional criminals is a lot greater than the chances they'll be killed by terrorists. The off-chance that a terror plot that would kill a lot of people will be foiled by torture isn't worth the very real costs associated with institutionalizing the practice.

On Torture

No, I'm not talking about the sight of Rudy in pantyhose; I'm talking about actual, physical torture. As used for interrogation.

A while ago, the Main Squeeze and I had dinner with an old friend, and that topic came up. I took the position then, as I have here, that torture is bad, and that it ought to be rejected as a tactic in the Global War on Terror. My friend -- a decent, humane guy, an old-fashioned Church-going Catholic -- expressed some disagreement. Referring to his children, he said "I would be inclined to agree with you were it not for the fact that really bad people want very badly to hurt my two kids." He admitted that torture was brutal, and that it inflicted suffering. But then, so too does war, and war is sometimes necessary as well. I understand his desire to protect his children, friends, family, loved ones, and fellow Americans from harm, but he's dead wrong about the desirability of torture.

To begin with, I'm not convinced that torture is actually likely to be an effective way of extracting information. Bill O'Reilly (via Balloon Juice and Flopping Aces) thinks it does, because, well, the torturers told him it did:

Both former CIA chief George Tenet and former CIA official Michael Scheuer, once the head of the bin Laden unit, told me that coerced interrogation methods often provided accurate intelligence that potentially saved thousands of lives.

Well, there you have it. It works -- case closed.

Seriously, of course George Tenet says "enhanced interrogation" works. He was the guy in charge at the CIA when a lot of this stuff was goig on. Of course he wants to claim that it was necessary, that it saved lives. In order to really evaluate his claim, a disinterested observer would have to have full access to all of the Super Top Secret burn-before-reading files and see what was gleaned. Unitl that happens, Tenet is saying "trust me." Has George Tenet done anything to earn that trust?

Publicly-available information does not suggest that torture or "enhanced interrogation" is particularly effective. At least one government study by the Intelligence Science Board found that there's no scientific evidence that torture works. Anecdotal evidence suggests that less coercive methods can be very effective indeed. A recent report of the reunion of World War II veterans of a unit known then as "P.O. Box 1142" has caused a bit of stir. The members of that unit extracted information from people, and they did it without torturing them. Likewise, this Anne Applebaum column from 2005 notes that the French used torture in their (losing) war in Algeria, and there's no real evidence it actually, you know, worked. She also quote quite a few past and present interrogators who concluded that harsh methods aren't all that effective. I'm sorry, but I trust these guys over George Tenet.

But let's suppose that it turns out that torture or "enhanced interrogation" really is effective, at least when done properly in some cases. It's still a bad idea. Glen Greenwald is right when he points out that small-government conservatives are often inconsistent with their own stated values when they support expansion of state power in the War on Terror.

Terrorists are indeed bad people intent on hurting us. But there are limits on what terrorists can do. They succeeded in killing several thousand Americans on September 11, 2001, and it's possible they will launch another attack that will be equally murderous. Even so, there is a reason why they had to use hijacked airliners rather than their own. At the end of the day, terrorism is a technique used by groups that are fundamentally weak. It is tragic for the people who are killed and their loved ones, but it's not an existential threat.

There is, by contrast, no limit to the amount of damage that can be done by an oppressive government. Murder by millions. Industrial scale torture. Seizure of property. Imprisonment without a fair hearing.

I don't want the government to have the power to torture people for one simple reason: I don't want to the government to have the power to torture people. I am, reluctantly, forced to admit that we need to have some government, but there is ample reason to not trust the government or its agents to not abuse their power. If the 20th Century taught any lesson at all, it ought to be that you don't want to live under a government where the agents of the state are given the power to torture people. Conservatives ought to understand that, and before President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney took office, they did.

Lady Jane's Run-In With the TSA

Megan McArdle, aka, Jane Galt had a bit of a run-in with airport security which she was nice enough to blog about. It seems that she wanted to bring home a few travel-sized containers of shampoo and such, but she had a bit of a snag: she hadn't acquired the requisite Ziploc bag, and the screeners made it clear: no baggie, no carry. As Megan noted, shampoo doesn't represent an independent security if it's not in a baggie -- the sole purpose of the Ziploc bag is to make it easier to inspect. Megan offered to put the offending soaps in some other sort of bag, but the screener apparently lacked the discretion or judgment to accept this offer, and so, her shampoo had to be abandoned.

Megan is offended by this rigid application of rules in a context in which they make no sense:

It's not that I particularly mind the loss of a travel size sleek 'n shine shampoo set. But I resent being treated to rule applications so blind that they zip past moronic and straight into The Kafka Zone. And I suspect that they are so moronically applied because we treat the TSA people like morons. How low does one's IQ have to be to indicate that one cannot comprehend the security purpose, and limits, of a Ziploc baggy? Whatever the cutoff, I am sure that this woman was above it. But hey, terrorism! So we create a bunch of silly rules, and then demand that our silly TSA people follow them blindly . . . and we all go merrily down the road to airport hell together.

Megan, we treat TSA screeners like morons because some of them are morons. Oh, not all of them, or even most. But, predictably, some of the people we hire for this (let's face it) really tedious job are going to be morons. Lest any screeners read this and offended, note the word "some." Some will be of ordinary intelligence; some may even be of above-average intelligence. But, predictably, some will be morons. I will say I know one airport screener, and, well, he's a pretty dull fellow. But the rest are probably smarter.

And so, rather than rely upon their discretion, intelligence, and judgment -- which, predictably, will be lacking in some cases -- we give them clear, rigid orders. Some of which, inevitably, will be stupid. But if you start letting them apply the rules in accordance with their understanding of the reason for each particular rule, well, somebody might make a stupid decision and some contraband might get through. Which could, theoretically, lead to trouble. (How much damage somebody could actually do with a pair of scissors in the post-9/11 world is a different issue.)

Moreover, if you allow screeners to apply their independent judgment, you will necessarily have a certain degree of disparity in how passengers are treated. Maybe one screener is smarter than another, more able to discern the purpose behind the Ziploc-bag rule. Maybe one is a jackbooted thug too dumb to land a job as a potbellied small-town Sheriff who applies every rule as rigidly as possible out of sheer sadistic glee. Maybe the guy next to him lacks the energy and just waves everybody by. But whatever the source of the differences, if you allow screeners latitude to exercise judgment, you will get differences.

In differences lie lawsuits. If it so happens that a tall, elfin, good-looking white female blogger is allowed to pass through security unhindered without the proper Ziploc bag, the Muslim fellow who got a different screener will inevitably complain when the screener insists on a proper baggie. Which will lead to a nasty discrimination lawsuit. Remember the flying Imams?

Also, in a purely practical sense, I don't want to be waiting in line behind the person who is rules-lawyering the TSA screener. For that matter, I don't want to be in the line when twenty people ahead of me are doing the rules-lawyering, many of them in a less sensible manner than Ms. McArdle.

Now, those who complain that our current regime is nothing more than "security theater" have a point. I think that the TSA should try to keep bombs, guns, and swords off of airplanes. If, in the post-9/11 world, somebody can hijack an airplane with box cutters or a pair of scissors, then we deserve to lose. But argue that with the idiots making the rules, not the idiots behind the x-ray machine. After all, as Megan observed, they don't have a choice.