DHS

Posted on Democrats, Liberals, Republicans, War on Terror

that’s a scary proposition

CBS newsman Bob Schieffer says that “Real security is built on trust in the government.”  He actually wrote that!  Read it here.

Trust in the government.  That’s a scary proposition if you really think about it.  The more bureaucracy you add to deal with a potential crisis, the more likely it is that the potential crisis becomes an actual crisis.  I get the point Schieffer was making about spin and how the feds should be honest with us when addressing terror-related events, but you can’t just depend on the government to protect you in these kinds of situations.  The flight crew and a brave passenger saved the day on Christmas Day.  Not the TSA or DHS.

Everything the federal government can and should do to improve our domestic security will not completely protect us from a future terrorist attack.  If we are completely committed to telling the truth to the American people, we should start by admitting this.

Posted on Democrats, Liberals, War on Terror

rules and other stupid things

Some new failed jihadist won’t be seeing his 72 virgins. 

Not yet anyway.  How fortunate those people on that Northwest flight are that the guy didn’t quite have the procedure down for detonating the explosive and that their fellow passengers and airline crew members took the initiative to deal with the threat.   This won’t always be the case.   Someday the United States may have to deal with a terrorist who knows exactly what he or she is doing, and has a foolproof plan to finish off the attack and to cause massive destruction in this country.   When we are confronted with a legitimate threat to the safety of our nation,  what will the federal government do about it?  There’s this theory going around that we can prevent future terrorist attacks by setting all sorts of limits on the innocent passengers just trying to get from point A to point B on an airplane.   Brilliant idea.  After all,  wannabe terrorists  / jihadists will follow all these rules too, won’t they? What lunacy is this?  We won’t prevent future terrorist attacks this way, and in the process of  “doing something” about the obvious problem, the feds might end up making us less safe by restricting our ability to protect ourselves in the event that someone slips by those watchful TSA agents.

One thing we can do that we are not doing is to be more selective about who gets visas into this country.  DHS should also consider keeping an eye on those folks once they get here, and kick them out once their visas expire.  I don’t think the federal government has a clue how to handle domestic terrorist threats, and this was true before President Obama arrived in Washington.   DHS is a flawed idea to begin with, and I often wonder if we would be safer leaving the security of the homeland in the hands of the FBI, rather than a large collection of bureaucrats.  We are where we are, so let’s take the situation as it is.   Enforcing current laws would go a long way toward keeping our country safe.  This also goes for illegal aliens of the non-Muslim variety that we have been ignoring for years under many different Presidential administrations.

Make it harder for potential terrorists by improving our intelligence gathering and enforcing current laws and visa restrictions.   Don’t keep imposing silly restrictions on airline passengers that do nothing to improve our chances of surviving a plane ride.  It’s common sense, something a lot of the fellows and ladies in DC seem to lack these days.

I agree with Hitch.  Read what he said in Slate.