Le Chat Est Sorti Du Sac

After this weekend's deadly attacks in Paris the French have responded to what Hollande bluntly called an act of war by flying sorties aimed at crippling ISIL. Hollande is (rightly) angry and on the verge of invoking Article 5 of the NATO agreement in order to spread the scope and intensity of the anti-ISIL efforts.

But Hollande committed a faux pas by declaring his intent to cut off ISIL's money supply by targeting oil assets under their control. Why is this so bad?

Because it begs a large number of questions embarrassing Europe, the United States and the Obama Administration.

It starts with How could that possibly make any difference--surely no one is BUYING ISIL oil, right? Certainly it is being bought, the money is fueling their terrorist enterprise and no one, not a single press or government agency is tracing the money. And no one is boycotting the sales or those who purchase this blood oil.

Then there is Why now? These targets have been known for some time and they have clearly been under ISIL control for quite some time. Why were they not taken out years ago? Before the United States had sacrificed so many on the altar of greed?

And Who has been involved in this conspiracy to soft-pedal our actions against ISIL? Has it just been a joy-stick game playing Nobel Laureate who likes to take on his own "most wanted" with predator drones? Has it been every oil-dependent country in the EU? Has some country unilaterally declared neutrality to set up an oil laundering enterprise to mask culpability?

And finally, How many more American lives will be lost because the United States and Europe have been reluctant to starve out ISIL?

Shut Down The TSA

Pretend airport security is "math" and admit we're just "not good at it." It's OK, no one really uses airport security in the real world anyway. Just look at the TSA, they had all that security training and then what happens on the "real" job? 95% failure rate. Security? Just a word they like to use.

Consider this. Suppose the TSA were 95% effective at detecting and stopping the faux threats presented in the latest audit. Pretty good, right? Wrong. 95% effective is 5% fail. That means 100 terrorists presenting a simplistic, direct attack on these "defenses" would succeed five times. That would be five planes at risk. That would be five more twin towers disasters. That would be five nuclear power plants spewing the toxic snow of our nuclear winter.

Or perhaps it would just be five plane crashes, or five planes taken out by our F-16's. That's OK, isn't it?

But the TSA isn't 95% effective, it is only 5% effective. Calls to "fix the TSA" are insane. This is not a car that needs a new battery, this is a car where the battery is the only thing that works. You do not throw even more money down this rat hole, you act on the facts and admit that TSA is little more than a jobs program for a specific demographic that puts on a (rather offensive) show but offers no meaningful value. But does so at enormous costs in money and erosion of our privacy and liberty. It is time to recognize that facts prove that the TSA IS the terrorists' victory and shut it down.