Con-pilot writes:
" If the United States is wrong on it’s concerns on the security of international airline flights inbound to the United States and delays or cancels some flights all that will happen is that some people will be inconvenienced. That’s all, inconvenience."
Unfortunately not just inconvenience. I have no idea how widespread my experience is, but I do know that I am not alone in actively relocating my business interests out of the USA, and allowing US contracts to run down without seeking to renew them or seek new US business.
Why? Mainly because crossing the US border has become so unpleasant that I just can't be bothered any more and I don't want to impose the experience on my employees unnecessarily. It has nothing to do with the security as such - European airports have had more intrusive procedures for many years (from a passenger point of view). It is to do with the frequency of experiencing offensive xenophobia and extra attention when I turn up with an alien passport and an arrival card that says that I am visiting on business (it is much better when I turn up visiting family).
As I have explored the possibility of abandoning US work I have discovered that I have been living under a delusion for 20 years. I always thought that if you really wanted to do well in business you had to be doing business in the USA. It turns out that I can do better business if I avoid the United States.
As I said, I have no idea how widespread my experience is, and I am sure that many Americans will just say 'good riddance' (although not the ones that I love and those who are married to my children), but my point is that there is more than simple inconvenience at stake here, there is the chance of major adverse behavioural change. In fact there has already been such change within the United States in my experience. I find less friendliness and more suspicion of strangers than I have been used to. Iowa used to be a good place to relax, but it is less so now.
It is true the other way round as well. I despair at the freedom some of my own countrymen and women feel to abuse people (some of whom are related to me by marriage) just because they have an American accent. And that has increased, too, in the past two years. A startling reverse of the wave of sympathy that immediately followed 9/11
The only thing that makes me hold back from all this is the knowledge that if what I am proposing to do turns out to be part of a trend, then the terrorists have won without ever having to attack again.