I watched the entire proceedings today on television and even re-read some of the text of the testimony by Condi Rice and am quite certain that Republican's Thomas Keane former governor of New Jersey and John Lehman, former Navy Secretary along with Democrat's Bob Kerry of Nebraska and Jamie Goreleck will make sure that the Commission figures out a way to avoid making these same "mistakes" in the future. For anyone to say otherwise is absurd.
Wag, you can have all the commissions you want and come up with recommendations out the wazoo, but the simple truth of the matter is that in any society, especially one as open as ours, you CANNOT DETER ALL TERRORIST ATTACKS. The FBI, CIA, NSA - all the alphabet agencies - could become the best of buddies overnight and share intel 24/7, but that is not going to stop Ali Bomber from walking into a mall, or a movie theater, or a restaurant, etc., in Des Moines and blowing up the place. Israel is arguably the most security-conscious nation on earth, yet they suffer suicide bombings all the time on their buses, at checkpoints, at restaurants and clubs, etc. How on earth would we be able to stop that kind of thing? Actually, I'm amazed that it hasn't happened here yet. I fear that one day we will experience a series of small-scale suicide bombings at, for example, shopping malls across the country, timed to go off at the same time, with the resulting loss of life dwarfing that of 9/11. The bottom line is that if someone is willing to die in order to blow themselves up and kill several of their perceived enemies, the odds are overwhelmingly with the suicide bomber. We are and forever will be a vulnerable society.
So let's spend some freaking tax dollars OVER HERE to improve our border patrol, the INS, exhange of information between the CIA and FBI, a much stronger FAA, not too mention increased funds and technology for the Coast Guard and our Port Security. Do you have any idea on how little we have spent on Port Security? Our Ports are so vulnerable, it isn't even funny and the Bush Administration still has yet to fund anything close to realistic in order to help our Nation's Ports get their security up to a sufficient level of security. Thus far, all we have gotten out of the Bush Administration and Homeland Defense is a lot of "tough" talk, and that is all that it has been . . . TALK! We have 361 Ports to protect, 95,000 miles of navigable waterways to defend and 20,000 oceangoing vessels to keep an eye on. The Coast Guard is focusing on what it considers the nation's 11,700 most likely maritime targets of a terrorist attack. About 3,200 of these targets are on shore: Oil refineries, nuclear power plants, liquid natural gas facilities and hundreds of other hazmat type sites. The 8,500 others are on the water: Public ferries from Seattle to New York, barges and cargo ships that crisscross U.S. harbors and inland waterways, oceangoing tankers and freighters, etc. Nevertheless, the federal government has been spending about seven to 10 times more on aviation security than maritime security. For 2004, Congress has authorized the federal Transportation Security Administration to spend $3.8 billion on airport security and less than a half-billion for port security. Let's spend some dollars over here first protecting our soil instead of pissing away $87 Billion on zip codes and post offices over in Iraq!
Were our cause truly noble, I might be able to get behind it. However, when were lied into a war that is all about oil, it is very difficulty to see the nobility, as the value of billions of dollars spent along with wasted lives could have done so much more here at home.
Believe you me, I know just how vulnerable our ports and harbors are. I share your concern on this. I live in Hawaii a mere couple of miles from Pearl and Honolulu harbor, and we are incredibly vulnerable - as are all our ports and harbors. From what I understand, it is virtually impossible to screen every single container that goes into every single US port. You're talking about tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of containers every day. The technology and manpower do not exist to do it. But again, Wag, I don't care how much dinero you pour into INS and border patrols, port security, etc., you still will not be able to stop a determined terrorist attack involving suicidal individuals. Before you get your panties in a knot and accuse me of this, I am NOT saying screw it, that we can't do anything about it. I'm just pointing out the very real logistical and technological obstacles we face. Finally, even if we had the money and resources to safeguard all our ports, airports, etc., you still are not going to be able to safeguard Joe Citizen in every single public place (restaurant, mall, etc.).
Takes office late Jan 2001. Works first 6 months. Takes 1 month vacation August 2001. Correct? On the other hand, they've fled Washington in August since the dawn of the republic I imagine. Geo.
Quote from Hapaboy: "From what I understand, it is virtually impossible to screen every single container that goes into every single US port. You're talking about tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of containers every day. The technology and manpower do not exist to do it." Hapa, I'm afraid to tell you this but you are wrong about our inability to screen hundreds of thousands of containers every day. Actually, the technology already exists with a company that I am extremely familiar with called L-3 Communications, (NYSE: LLL). They have a Homeland Security division that specializes in Port Security and cargo container screening. But unfortunately, the Bush Administration treats Tom Ridge and Homeland Security like a "paper-tiger" with a total lack of funding. The budget that I showed in my last post unfortunately supports this. But naaaa, we'd rather spend $100 billion over in Iraq first instead of getting our house in order! Can you just imagine what would happen if a "dirty" bomb went off in the middle of the Port of Los Angeles, tying up Long Beach as well? What a shame.
But does the technology exist to do it in a manner that won't bring our economy to a screeching halt? My interpretation was that such technology did exist - yes you can screen cargo containers - but not in a timely manner.
'Told you so' and 'What now?' By Molly Ivins Creators Syndicate AUSTIN - Iraq. What. A. Mess. As Cousin Eddie Faulk used to say during Vietnam, "If those folks don't like what we're doin' for 'em, why don't they just go back where they come from?" Columnist Eric Alterman sums up the position of the "We told you so" crowd thusly: ⢠The invasion of Iraq will cause, not prevent, terrorism. ⢠The Bush administration was not to be trusted when it warned of the WMD threat. ⢠Going in without the United Nations is worse than not going in at all. ⢠They were asleep at the switch before 9-11 and have been trying to cover this up ever since. ⢠They manipulated 9-11 as a pretext for a long-planned invasion of Iraq. ⢠Any occupation by a foreign power, particularly one as incompetently planned as this one, probably will create more enemies than friends and put the United States in a situation similar at times to the Vietnam War and at other times similar to Israel's occupation of Lebanon. Both were disasters. ⢠An invasion of Iraq will draw resources and attention away from the genuine perpetrators of the attack on us and allow them to regroup for further attacks. OK, that's the bad news. What www.talkingpointsmemo.com's Josh Marshall calls "the hunky-dory crowd" is still telling us that the electricity is back on and things are almost back up to where they were under Saddam Hussein. There's a mark to aim for. Look, I never root for bad things to happen, and maybe Moqtada al-Sadr has set off merely a spasm of violence and not a real Shiite insurrection. Maybe the Shiite outburst is just a reaction to Paul Bremer's incredibly dumb move in shutting down their newspaper. If that's the case, why wasn't al-Sadr invited to the table and given a stake in the transition? The "We told you so" crowd often points out that we'd be a lot better off if anyone in the administration read history, usually citing the British occupation of Iraq. I like to think of myself as part of the "So what do we do now?" crowd, but it is like drinking gall. We could try what we clearly should have done from the beginning: putting more boots on the ground. We've got about 135,000 troops there now. Gen. Eric Shinseki's "several hundred thousand" prediction looks more prescient all the time. The trouble with that scenario is that it violates the First Rule of Holes. (When you're in one, quit digging.) Second, it may be too late. Then there's the old reliable "Bug out now." Yep, it could be time to declare victory and go home. That seems to be President Bush's plan. He can just say, "Well, we took care of the weapons of mass destruction, so we're outta here." As many others have pointed out, June 30 is just a ridiculous deadline. Even though we're not planning to withdraw on June 30, I can't see how we're going to hang onto what was supposed to be the great strategic advantage of this war. Those of you who follow neo-con thinking know that this never was about weapons of mass destruction. It was supposed to give us a place to plunk ourselves down so we could restructure the entire region. I suspect what we'll wind up doing is the inevitable "muddle along" until our leaders can lie us out more or less gracefully. If I were John Kerry, I would be having horrible nightmares about winning the election and actually having to ask an American soldier to be the last man to die for a mistake. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------