The Antiterrorist Card

In a message dated 12/12/2006 7:30:44 PM Eastern Standard Time, Hubmaster writes:
It seems rather odd that our government can mobilize its forces against terrorism, dispense with the Constitution and yet completely do an about face when it seems to suit its purpose...To say that its confusing to go from first one position to the opposite with the blink of an eye and think nothing of it sows confusion among those of us who can't seem to rationalize what's going on as coherent policy.

What we are privy to seems to be government by convenience and that convenience has more to do with bottom line motives than maintaining a universal front against terrorism.

Many of us have noticed this strange pattern of behavior that suggests we pull out all of the plugs to assure that we are safe from terrorists, yet ignores the challenges of our
Borders. It seems the antiterrorist effort is very selective.
We will address them at the airports but ignore them at the train stations doesn't make much sense to me.

It seems to suggest that it is alright to snoop on people without the approval of the Courts, yet it is okay to allow our ports to be operated and maintained by companies with strong connections to the Middle East.
We are advised that our Saudi friends underwrite much of the terrorism that goes on but our president's father and friends sit on a board that buys up American defense contractors.

We talk about unifying all of our protective agencies into one Super Bureaucracy at enormous cost to the taxpayer, yet we seem unable to provide “first responders” with the tools they need to handle the challenges they will face if the terrorists return as they are likely to do.

This seems to me symptomatic of a kind of preparation that is half-baked, half thought out. It is as if we have we have authorized the preparation of the most advanced submarines but equipped them with screen doors.

For example, we have the same percentage of Federal dollars doled out to a small Western State that hosts no national target as New York and Washington, which seem to deserve the lion’s share of any Federal money earmarked for protection of possible target sites. Yet the recipients of Federal money for protection use that money to buy garbage trucks or protective vests for their canines.
Now, we're not against protecting our dogs, it's just that when you talk antiterrorist we should be consistent.
If you think about what we're calling policy it is disturbingly reminiscent of the way we approached the challenges of New Orleans. We seemed to come on strong in one area and completed neglected to consider the accompanying challenge next store. We rebuilt homes almost at whim it seems without a coherent plan or a program. The randomness of our contrived solutions seemed pulled out of a hat rather than being thought about.

Had this been the modus operandi during the Kennedy years, one wonders whether we would have reached the moon in the established time frame.

When it comes to security and protection, this seemingly mind-blowing disregard for logic and coherence is more than just neglect, it seems like a fundamental dereliction of duty. And it is the sort of thing we see all over the place. From the secret no bid contracts with Brown and Root and other Kellogg companies to rebuild a warn torn Iraq to the problems of building a 700 mile fence for a 2,000 mile border.

In short, who or what is watching the store when our president can seem to get his attention off of Iraq? That is what concerned citizens would really like to know.
While we are told that protection of Iraq is important to our own protection so is protection of our borders and our ports. Until these questions are addressed, no one I know is going to sleep soundly at night.

And we face two more years of unanswered questions unless the Democrats take the bull by the horns and start off in January with pervasive hearings and investigations.

Les Aaron