Its really funny George you drive down to the States, and the security on their bases is astounding, I do think they are a little over-zealous at times but you can't hack them for doing a good job securing their bases. As for other NATO countries, France was the exact same. I had the opportunity to fly into France on a Canadian government jet for the 60th Anniversary of D-Day and we landed at a French air force base outside Evreux. The security at that base in comparison to our own was astounding. I know it was probably elevated due to the fact that dignitaries were arriving there; even still, I imagine it was maintained at a very high level at all times. When we stepped off the plane we were greeted by armed soldiers, this shocked me in comparison to what we are used to seeing in Canada, not only that but there were soldiers armed to the teeth everywhere, it provided a real show of force.
In fact it was a common sight in France to see gendarmes armed with FAMAS assault rifles patrolling the streets of France while I was there. It makes me laugh when I think of the huge uproar that was created over providing RCMP officers with MP5's on Parliament Hill.
Apollo Diomedes, I know its probably not the best thing to say but maybe some one on here will actually read about this and do something about it. So many things strike me as funny, I mean we do a pretty good job in terms of securing personal weapons yet I can walk onto a base and with little effort hope into a million dollar war machine: Does this make any sense?
On the note of comissionaires, I think a lot of them do a fairly decent job given the amount of resources they have to work with. A fair number of them are ex-military and see the importance of security. With that being said; they are not police officers, they are unarmed and realistically if something were to happen the most they can do is call the MPs/RCMP/other local police force to come deal with the situation.
