Suddenly, the key isn't security
Suddenly, the key isn't security
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
June 30, 2006
BY ANDREW GREELEY
''Homeland security'' was the slogan for the election four years ago. This time around there are two cliches: ''Global War on Terror'' and ''Freedom and Democracy for Iraq.'' Yet, the commission that reported on some of the 9/11 mistakes is back, now as a private group, to report on whether the country is any more secure than it was. No one is listening. We are preoccupied with the killing of a terrorist leader who had lost some of his power, a dubious Iraqi Cabinet and another grandstand presidential flight -- this time to mark corners turned rather than a mission accomplished.
''Homeland security" isn't mentioned anymore, not after the Hurricane Katrina debacle. Is there any reason to expect that the collection of clowns in that ramshackle, jerry-built, Rube Goldberg department can protect the nation from terrorists? The 9/11 Commission reports that there is no adequate list of terrorists to compare against airplane passenger lists, that the Transportation Safety Administration is poorly managed and that the FBI after years of trying and billions of dollars spent still does not have a functioning computer system.
The CIA has a revolving door for its directors and spends much of its energies in a struggle to protect its turf from another all-encompassing superstructure, the National Intelligence Agency. We read in the papers that al-Qaida canceled its plan to spread nerve gas in the New York subway because it wasn't big enough. If terrorists feel the need to top their World Trade Center victory, what must they be planning? Is there any reason to think that our disorganized, stumblebum, muscle-bound gumshoes will be able to figure out what they're up to? What might they try on Sept. 11, 2006?
I see by the papers that the CTA has a lovable golden lab named Ryan who wanders through mass transit locales charming customers as she politely sniffs them. After the attacks on Madrid, why are there not hundreds of her sisters and brothers prowling around? Costs too much, I guess.
Might terrorists be scheming to plant ''dirty bombs'' on container ships in several American ports that will go off at the same time? Despite the warnings about the inadequacy of port protection, five years later they remain a dangerous weakness in our cockamamie security system. Stay away from them this Sept.11.
Or what about simultaneous attacks on jumbo jets as they're taking off from five major airports? Stinger anti-aircraft missiles are readily available on the international arms black markets. The military possesses weapon systems that will deflect attacks from its planes flying out of Baghdad, but, we are told, it would be too costly to mount such defenses on commercial jets. So the American fleet of jets are an inviting target. It would require only 10 or 15 men to launch a Stinger attack from side roads a short distance from five airports. Maybe, just maybe, a couple of the missile teams would be discovered and destroyed. Maybe, just maybe, some of the missiles might misfire. All right, only two or three 747s blow up. What does that do to the American economy?
No one seems ready to ask why some of the money diverted to rich Americans as tax reductions is not used to protect jets. Or why a few of the billions that are poured into the Big Muddy of Iraq are not available to prevent such a disaster.
Last week we heard much about the pathetic wannabe Haitian terrorists who weren't Muslim, had no guns and no money and pledged their allegiance to al-Qaida as administered by a government informant. Doubtless such folk shouldn't be permitted to play their games, but as evidence that the country is cracking down on terror, it is pretty thin.
The president plays fast and loose with the truth when he says that the war in Iraq is a crucial front in the war on global terrorism. In fact, Iraq was not a base for terrorism before the World Trade Center attack, and the war itself has created more terrorists than there were five years ago. Victory in Iraq, should it ever happen -- which seems unlikely -- would do nothing to divert al-Qaida and its imitators from their goals of punishing the United States. Instead of increasing our national security, we put our bet on the wrong enemy: the fictional weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
June 30, 2006
BY ANDREW GREELEY
''Homeland security'' was the slogan for the election four years ago. This time around there are two cliches: ''Global War on Terror'' and ''Freedom and Democracy for Iraq.'' Yet, the commission that reported on some of the 9/11 mistakes is back, now as a private group, to report on whether the country is any more secure than it was. No one is listening. We are preoccupied with the killing of a terrorist leader who had lost some of his power, a dubious Iraqi Cabinet and another grandstand presidential flight -- this time to mark corners turned rather than a mission accomplished.
''Homeland security" isn't mentioned anymore, not after the Hurricane Katrina debacle. Is there any reason to expect that the collection of clowns in that ramshackle, jerry-built, Rube Goldberg department can protect the nation from terrorists? The 9/11 Commission reports that there is no adequate list of terrorists to compare against airplane passenger lists, that the Transportation Safety Administration is poorly managed and that the FBI after years of trying and billions of dollars spent still does not have a functioning computer system.
The CIA has a revolving door for its directors and spends much of its energies in a struggle to protect its turf from another all-encompassing superstructure, the National Intelligence Agency. We read in the papers that al-Qaida canceled its plan to spread nerve gas in the New York subway because it wasn't big enough. If terrorists feel the need to top their World Trade Center victory, what must they be planning? Is there any reason to think that our disorganized, stumblebum, muscle-bound gumshoes will be able to figure out what they're up to? What might they try on Sept. 11, 2006?
I see by the papers that the CTA has a lovable golden lab named Ryan who wanders through mass transit locales charming customers as she politely sniffs them. After the attacks on Madrid, why are there not hundreds of her sisters and brothers prowling around? Costs too much, I guess.
Might terrorists be scheming to plant ''dirty bombs'' on container ships in several American ports that will go off at the same time? Despite the warnings about the inadequacy of port protection, five years later they remain a dangerous weakness in our cockamamie security system. Stay away from them this Sept.11.
Or what about simultaneous attacks on jumbo jets as they're taking off from five major airports? Stinger anti-aircraft missiles are readily available on the international arms black markets. The military possesses weapon systems that will deflect attacks from its planes flying out of Baghdad, but, we are told, it would be too costly to mount such defenses on commercial jets. So the American fleet of jets are an inviting target. It would require only 10 or 15 men to launch a Stinger attack from side roads a short distance from five airports. Maybe, just maybe, a couple of the missile teams would be discovered and destroyed. Maybe, just maybe, some of the missiles might misfire. All right, only two or three 747s blow up. What does that do to the American economy?
No one seems ready to ask why some of the money diverted to rich Americans as tax reductions is not used to protect jets. Or why a few of the billions that are poured into the Big Muddy of Iraq are not available to prevent such a disaster.
Last week we heard much about the pathetic wannabe Haitian terrorists who weren't Muslim, had no guns and no money and pledged their allegiance to al-Qaida as administered by a government informant. Doubtless such folk shouldn't be permitted to play their games, but as evidence that the country is cracking down on terror, it is pretty thin.
The president plays fast and loose with the truth when he says that the war in Iraq is a crucial front in the war on global terrorism. In fact, Iraq was not a base for terrorism before the World Trade Center attack, and the war itself has created more terrorists than there were five years ago. Victory in Iraq, should it ever happen -- which seems unlikely -- would do nothing to divert al-Qaida and its imitators from their goals of punishing the United States. Instead of increasing our national security, we put our bet on the wrong enemy: the fictional weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 8:18 AM
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