Al Queda Target: Railways – Schumer calls for No-Ride List; Economic Hit Would be Devastating - Beef Up the Borders with U.S. Troops

Freight Train moving through Santa Barbara, CA from Tran Blog by Marcel Marchon

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were devastating to the U.S. economy; the immediate impact to New York City alone was 16.9 Billion dollars (fiscalpolicy.org), and, considered short-lived on a national scope, the economy was impacted for a period of 2 years, with an immediate impact on Wall Street on a par with two other events beginning in 1920, with the bombing of Wall Street 9/16/1920, and the September attack on the Olympics in Munich in 1972 (Journal of 911 Studies, March 2008).

With the cache of information gathered in the U.S. raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound, it was discovered that America’s railways are potential terrorist targets. With this revelation, even Charles Schumer (D-NY) is calling for a “No-Ride” list for passenger trains in the U.S. (Reuters), however, the documents do indicate that that the attacks would be on the rail lines themselves, rather than a terrorist boarding a train (KBOI) As any attack on a commuter train’s costs in lives and the economy may be, the disruption to rail service in general, would have an enormous impact on the overall economy. Over 43 percent of all U.S. goods are moved by rail (Boston Globe).

Beefing up security for all trains, commuter as well as freight lines is in order, however, the “no-ride” list and the Department of Homeland Security’s call for citizens to act as watchdogs, does not address the overall problem of border security, which remains porous, whether it be to the southern border, northern border, or more specifically the ports and coastlines both east and west. In this opinion, although some might sight tighter border control as somewhat draconian, when one considers the impact on lives and damage to the current unstable U.S. economy, the more nationalist view of border control, including the use of U.S. troops to patrol the border (a la Donald Trump’s suggestion (The Trump Card 2012), begins to make sense.

Politics aside, whether right, left or center, it is obvious that, even with the demise of Osama Bin Laden, there are members of the Al Queda organization radical faction to step in, replace, and even outdo Bin Laden’s legacy. The fact that there were continued discussions and plans within the hierarchy of that organization since September 11th only highlights the necessity of a more proactive border policy. The fact that the rails are a target makes this more urgent, in light of the current economy. Although the chances of this occurring under the current administration and Congress are slim to nothing, it would behoove our elected officials to consider this tactic, regardless of which special interest groups one might offend in the short-term, in the long-term, this type of policy would be a step in ensuring the safety of the public, but also go far towards controlling illegal immigration, as well as putting a dent into human trafficking which is an abominable trade, using all borders.