We’ve talked in the past about the Democrats for National Security, a new think tank forming in Washington D.C.
I just got their newsletter, which sadly isn’t available on the web. So I’m making it available below.
Note that I am 100% in agreement with the basic principle espoused – that the key to homeland security isn’t new federal police forces (or powers), but is in better staffing, training, and equipping existing local public safety teams, and in creating an information infrastructure that will make it possible for information to move upward, to allow national-level analysis and intelligence, laterally, to better enable coordination between agencies, and downward to let the analysis and intelligence to be moved downward to the street levels where it can be used.
As Glenn Reynolds puts it so well, think about “a pack, not a herd”.
July 2 Newsletter from Democrats for National Security:
“On Sunday, the Council on Foreign Relations released a new report warning that nearly two years after the September 11 attacks, the United States remains dangerously vulnerable to terrorist attack and that funding at all levels of government must be increased.
Today, The Hill newspaper (which covers Congress) published an article reporting that the House Republican leadership is disinclined to make the House’s Homeland Security panel permanent.
What these reports indicate is a total lack of leadership on Homeland Security from an administration that would rather give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans than spend the time, effort, and money to prevent another terrorist attack like the one that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. Bush’s fiscal folly not only threatens our financial security, it imperils our nation’s security.
Nearly Two Years After 9/11, the United States is Still Dangerously Unprepared and Underfunded for a Catastrophic Terrorist Attack, Warns New Council Task Force”
Overall Expenditures Must Be as Much as Tripled to Prepare Emergency Responders Across the Country
———————————
June 29, 2003 – Nearly two years after 9/11, the United States is drastically underfunding local emergency responders and remains dangerously unprepared to handle a catastrophic attack on American soil, particularly one involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-impact conventional weapons. If the nation does not take immediate steps to better identify and address the urgent needs of emergency responders, the next terrorist incident could be even more devastating than 9/11.
These are the central findings of the Council-sponsored Independent Task Force on Emergency Responders, a blue-ribbon panel of Nobel laureates, U.S. military leaders, former high-level government officials, and other senior experts, led by former Senator Warren B. Rudman and advised by former White House terrorism and cyber-security chief Richard A. Clarke. This report marks the first time that data from emergency responder communities has been brought together to estimate national needs.
The Task Force met with emergency responder organizations across the country and asked them what additional programs they truly need–not a wish list–to establish a minimum effective response to a catastrophic terrorist attack. These presently unbudgeted needs total $98.4 billion, according to the emergency responder community and budget experts (See attached budget chart.)
Currently the federal budget to fund emergency responders is $27 billion for five years beginning in 2004. Because record keeping and categorization of state and local spending varies greatly across states and localities, the experts could not estimate a single total five-year expenditure by state and local governments. Their best judgment is that state and local spending over the same period could be as low as $26 billion and as high as $76 billion. Therefore, total estimated spending for emergency responders by federal, state and local governments combined would be between $53 and $103 billion for the five years beginning in FY04.
Because the $98.4 billion unmet needs budget covers areas not adequately addressed at current funding levels, the total necessary overall expenditure for emergency responders would be $151.4 billion over five years if we are currently spending $53 billion, and $201.4 billion if we are currently spending $103 billion. Estimated combined federal state, and local expenditures therefore would need to be as much as tripled over the next five year to address this unmet need. Covering this funding shortfall using federal funds alone would require a five-fold increase from the current level of $5.4 billion per year to an annual federal expenditure of $25.1 billion.
“While we have put forth the best estimates so far on emergency responder needs, the nation must urgently develop a better framework and procedures to generate guidelines on national preparedness,” said Rudman, who served as Task Force chair. “And the government cannot wait to increase desperately needed funding to emergency responders until it has these standards in place,” he said.
The Task Force credits the Bush administration, Congress, governors and mayors for taking important steps since 9/11 to respond to the risk of catastrophic terrorism, and does not seek to apportion blame about what has not been done or not done quickly enough. The report is aimed, rather, at closing the gap between current levels of emergency preparedness and minimum essential preparedness levels across the United States.
“This report is an important preliminary step in a process of developing national standards and determining national needs for emergency responders,” said Council President Leslie H. Gelb, “but the report also highlights the need for much more work to be done in this area.”
The Independent Task Force, Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared, based its analysis on data provided by front-line emergency responders–firemen, policemen, emergency medical workers, public health providers and others–whose lives depend upon the adequacy of their preparedness for a potential terrorist attack.
The study was carried out in partnership with the Concord Coalition and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, two of the nation’s leading budget analysis organizations.
Jamie Metzl, Council Senior Fellow and a former National Security Council and Senate Foreign Relations Committee official, directed the effort. The Task Force drew upon the expertise of more than twenty leading emergency responder professional associations and leading officials across the United States. (A list of participating associations is attached below.)
The Task Force identified two major obstacles hampering America’s emergency preparedness efforts. First, because we lack preparedness standards, it is difficult to know what we need and how much it will cost. Second, funding for emergency responders has been sidetracked and stalled due to a politicized appropriations process, slowness in the distribution of the funds by federal agencies, and bureaucratic red tape at all levels of government.
To address the lack of standards and good numbers, the Task Force makes the following recommendations:
* Congress should require that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) work with state and local agencies and officials and emergency responder professional associations to establish clearly defined standards and guidelines for emergency preparedness. These standards must be sufficiently flexible to allow local officials to set priorities based on their needs, provided that they reach nationally-determined preparedness levels within a fixed time period.
* Congress should require that the DHS and the Department of Health and Human Services submit a coordinated plan for meeting identified national preparedness standards by the end of FY07.
* Congress should establish a system for allocating scarce resources based less on dividing the spoils and more on addressing identified threats and vulnerabilities. To do this, the Federal government should consider such factors as population, population density, vulnerability assessment, and presence of critical infrastructure within each state. State governments should be required to use the same criteria for distributing funds within each state.
* Congress should establish within DHS a National Institute for Best Practices in Emergency Preparedness to work with state and local governments, emergency preparedness professional associations, and other partners to share best practices and lessons learned.
* Congress should make emergency responder grants in FY04 and thereafter on a multi-year basis to facilitate long-term planning and training.
To deal with the problem of appropriated funds being sidetracked and stalled on their way to Emergency Responders, the Task Force recommends:
* The U.S. House of Representatives should transform the House Select Committee on Homeland Security into a standing committee and give it a formal, leading role in the authorization of all emergency responder expenditures in order to streamline the federal budgetary process.
The U.S. Senate should consolidate emergency preparedness and response oversight into the Senate Government Affairs Committee.
* Congress should require the Department of Homeland Security to work with other federal agencies to streamline homeland security grants to reduce unnecessary duplication and to establish coordinated “one-stop shopping” for state and local authorities seeking grants.
* States should develop a prioritized list of requirements in order to ensure that federal funding is allocated to achieve the best possible return on investments.
Congress should ensure that all future appropriations bills for emergency responders include strict distribution timelines.
* The Department of Homeland Security should move the Office of Domestic Preparedness from the Bureau of Border and Transportation Security to the Office of State and Local Government Coordination in order to consolidate oversight of grants to emergency responders within the office of the Secretary.
The Task Force on Emergency Responders is a follow on to the Council’s highly acclaimed Hart-Rudman Homeland Security Task Force, which made concrete recommendations last October on defending the country against a terrorist attack.
Established in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations is a nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank, dedicated to increasing America’s understanding of the world and contributing ideas to U.S. foreign policy. The Council accomplishes this mainly by promoting constructive debates, clarifying world issues, producing reports, and publishing Foreign Affairs, the leading journal on global issues.
From The Hill – July 2, 2003
—————————————–
House Security Panel May Not Survive, Leaders Hint
Conflicts Threaten Committee’s Future
By Hans Nichols
House Republican leaders have signaled that they are disinclined to grant permanent status to the panel that will oversee the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
GOP aides say the political will and motivation are not there because making the Select Committee on Homeland Security a permanent panel would create a jurisdictional conflict that the leadership would prefer to avoid.
But some lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, say that the committee’s probationary status prevents it from discharging the full and vigorous oversight that the new requires.
Word that the GOP leadership had little interest in making the Homeland Security panel permanent was apparently made clear at an informal June 11 meeting between roughly a dozen GOP chiefs of staff and Scott Palmer, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s (Ill.) top aide. Several of senior aides confirmed their attendance, but the Speaker’s office says their interpretation of the message is faulty.
The meeting took place a week after … and in the shadow of … a Homeland Security Committee hearing at which DHS officials enraged members.
“The committee was unhappy on both sides of the aisle with what they received at this hearing,” said Vince Sollitto, spokesman for Rep. Chris Cox (R-Calif.), the committee’s chairman.
House aides say the new department is not treating the panel with respect.
One person who attended the meeting says Palmer laid out the leadership’s strategy in response to a Republican aide who expressed concern about the political ramifications for the GOP in the 2004 elections if DHS does not work out its organizational kinks, let alone fails to discharge its mission to protect the nation from future terrorist attacks.
The aide, who works for a committee member on the panel, told Palmer that the committee isn’t being taken seriously by DHS personnel, citing the curt and poorly prepared June 5th testimony by top DHS officials.
“The message we got was, it’s not going to happen. Period. They just don’t want the fight,” said one participant at the meeting with Palmer.
Palmer told the participants that that three chairmen … Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) of Transportation and Infrastructure, James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) of Judiciary and Billy Tauzin (R-La.) of Energy and Commerce … would balk at making Cox’s Homeland panel permanent.
The thinking does not sit well with committee members or their top aides, who worry that the Democrats will seek to fortify their national security credentials by criticizing the administration’s handling of a massive new bureaucracy that was set up only after President Bush dropped his initial opposition.
At the June 5 hearing, Paul Redmond, the department’s assistant secretary for information analysis began his testimony by telling the committee: “I have no prepared statement.”
Redmond’s posture caught committee members, both Republicans and Democrats, off-guard.
“I understand that his opening statement is that he has no opening statement,” said a dumbstruck Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ).
Redmond retired yesterday for health reasons.
As evidence of an emerging Democratic strategy, GOP aides cite a press conference held the Monday after Redmond’s testimony and two days before the Palmer meeting. Democrats accused DHS of fronting a cavalier attitude toward its congressional minders.
Rep. Jim Turner (D-Texas), the ranking member on Homeland Security said: “Recent hearings of the House Homeland Security Committee clearly revealed to each of us … and, I think, to every member of our committee … that when it comes to preparing America to meet the threat of bioterrorism, the Department of Homeland Security is broken and needs to be fixed. America clearly is at risk by this failure.”
Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.), another committee member, said, “Those of us who witnessed last Thursday’s hearing with Mr. Redmond, including many of our Republican colleagues, were absolutely astounded at the lack of progress made by the intelligence arm of DHS since its creation and the lack of attention being paid to seemingly obvious threats.”
Langevin continued: “This is an urgent situation that must be rectified immediately, and it will require strong leadership on the part of Secretary [Tom] Ridge.”
The Homeland Security panel has until September of next year to make recommendations on its future status.
Asked about Palmer’s plan for the Homeland panel, Sollitto said: “I’ve heard nothing on that and have no comment on that.
“[Discussions] about its permanent status would be premature .” The committee is engaged in aggressive oversight on the Department of Homeland Security to make sure that congressional intent is followed,” he added.
Defense is not offense. The American people correctly feel the Democratic Party is inherently incapable of offense – specifically that the Democrats are opposed to destroying our enemies overseas. Winning is quite different from not losing – consider Israel if you don’t understand the distinction. Wars can only be won with offense, and we are at war. Internal security efforts alone against terrorism originating overseas just makes us perpetual targets at home.
IMO the Democrats are dead in 2004 for this reason. If they won’t confront their own extremists, the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston may have the consequences of the 1814 Federalist convention in Hartford, Connecticut. I.e., the Democratic Party has a limited time window in which to avoid being damned.
I left the Democratic Party because Senator John Glenn would not fight the nuclear freezers in 1984. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” – Burke. “The best lack all conviction; the worst are full of passionate intensity” – Yeats.
Focusing on internal security is only a way to dodge a confrontation within the Democratic Party on military policy. If the only Democratic voices the public hears on the latter all denounce use of military force against terrorist threats abroad, the continued survival of the Democratic Party is an issue, because this war will go on for at least a generation.
This is nonsense. The war on terrorism will be won overseas or lost at home. No amount of money spent on “homeland security” is going to win the war on terrorism. Funding for first responders might protect some of us some of the time – which is undeniably a virtue – but playing defense is not going to defeat terrorism. We can only win by taking the fight to the enemy and defeating him in his home.
Then we have the not inconsiderable issue of Democrat hypocrisy on homeland security. According to them, the Patriot Act might as well be the revival of the Sedition Act – and they complain incessantly about lack of funds for first responders. The Democrat policy of choice is “we dare not try to stop them before they act for fear of violating their civil rights, but we damn well better be sure our cops, firefighters, paramedics and trauma centers have the means to deal with them when they do.” Forgive me for wanting to live my life as a free man rather than a scared bunny – but fully funding every urban public safety and health department for every possible contingency is not an effective or responsible national security policy. It is a political dodge from the bloody and unfortunate work required overseas – while throwing rhetorical bones urban Democrat constituencies hungry for more tax dollars.
Ultimately it is a dead end. We cannot be absolutely secure at home and retain our freedoms. Does anyone really think we can do it better than the Israelis, who face unrelenting security threats? We cannot buy enough homeland security here. But we can win homeland security overseas by killing terrorists before they kill us – but that is not part of the Democrat “national security” platform.
Nope. Gotta call BS on both of your comments. the war will be won by doing three things:
1) eliminating the cadres, support, and resources of the terrorists as they sit.
2) raising the cost of terrorist actions – makingthem more difficult and expensive to carry out.
3) reducing the political, social and economic drivers – draining the swamp is the best way to kill the mosquitoes.
If you guys really think that the only path through this is offense, why do the Israeli’s disagree with you?
And if I’m right in *my assumption* that we’re dealng with something broader than just the Arab world, we’re going to facing these issues for a while as we figure out how to stop them from happening.
A.L.
A.L.
What I said before still applies:
“America is in the chaos elimination business because tyranny anywhere is a threat to Americans everywhere, even at home. That is the searing lesson of 9/11. There is no such thing as defense in this war – only the complete elimination of our enemies. This means killing terrorists and reforming at gun point the societies that breed them.”
Democrats are not for winning the war.
They are for _not losing it_, just like in Vietnam.
That is why Bush/Rove is going to kick their collective butts in 2004.
Well, I’m in agreement that (absent my leaking the pictures I have of Bush and Michael Jackson in the hot tub) Bush comes out on top in 04 – although I’m still willing to bet on how much he winds by.
But we’ve got to combine offense and defense to win.
Bush has done a damn good job on offense. He’s done a terrible job on defense. And I think that what he’s done re pay and benefits for the military is both shameful and counterproductive in an era when retention and expansion of the military will be critical.
A.L.
…reforming at gun point the societies that breed them
When has reform-at-gunpoint ever successfully elminated or even significantly reduced a society’s production of new terrorists? It’s the people most likely to become terrorists that are the least put off by the gunpoint.
Just how this “war” could possibly be won by gunpoint is a mystery to me. The only conceivable way I can think of to completely wipe out the threat of terrorism would be to impose a global totalitarian system based on ubiquitous surveillance and law control.
Sure, with military operations around the globe smashing states, launching strikes against suspected terrorist locations or camps, carrot-and-sticking other nations to tow the line, share intelligence, engage in their own crackdowns, etc., you can probably prevent the reorganization of a centralized, massively funded and global organization like al Qaeda. What you get instead, especially because of the boot heel you’re walking around the world with, are hundreds or thousands of smaller terrorist cells or even individuals, mostly unconnected, with axes to grind that are more local or regional than global. Maybe if you make our own country into a fortress you can even keep most of them out, but the higher you build the walls the more people will see them as targets.
How successful has the gunpoint been in Afghanistan? Sure, we destroyed the regime that sheltered a murderous, even genocidal organization. Good for us. But the country has decended a long way back towards the chaos that made the Taliban seem like an appealing alternative to the common people, and the U.S. gets at least its fair share of the blame for that. But this adminstration is incapable of thinking about more than one or two countries at a time, and now that Liberia seems to have gotten Karl Rove’s attention, we can reasonable expect that Afghanistan will get even less, not the much, much more that it should get if we were actually concerned with not repeating the mistakes of the past.
If the Bush administration could actually reverse its mistakes in Afghanistan and not fuck up Iraq I’d gain a lot of respect for it’s foreign policy. But I’m not holding my breath.
A.L.,
There is no defense in this war. Either the world changes or America does by becoming less free. The American people will not stand for the latter.
All the Democrats are proposing is a bigger more brain dead “War on Drugs.”
The current “War on Drugs” is a bigger threat to my rights as an American than the “Patriot Act.” Why the hell should I want a bigger one?
Israel’s problem is that today’s Jews are not serious about doing what it takes to win for fear it would damage their Jewish identity after the tramas of the Lebanese war.
The survivors of the Holocaust did not have that illusion.
Nor do current day Americans outside the ruling factions in the Democratic Party.
clue said:
>When has reform-at-gunpoint ever successfully
>elminated or even significantly reduced a
>society’s production of new terrorists?
We did a damned fine job of stopping Japanese Kamikazies by fire bombing and finally nuking Japanese urban areas.
If Americans get tired of ‘herding cats’ in the Arab world plus Pakistan after we defeat their armies. That solution is still available.
Pray that it does not come to that.
America is going to do what ever it takes to be left alone at home. That is why America is going to win this war. When the American will is engaged fanatical resistance to American power simply increases the body count for non-Americans.
clue also said:
>Taliban seem like an appealing alternative to
>the common people, and the U.S. gets at least
>its fair share of the blame for that.
The reason Taliban fell so quickly was that it had simply become a bigger warlord gang by catering to the Al-qaeda’s demands on the locals, particularly the women folk. The loss of security was already happening to the people with Islamic police state terror besides.
What we are seeing now in Afghanistan is the Islamist wing of the Pakistani ISI starting to run a terrorist campaign from the Pashtun tribal territories into Afghanistan the way they have run one from Pakistan into Khasmiri India for the last 20 years.
For all that, the facts on the ground argue that things are better in Afghanistan. Several million refugees have returned home from Pakistan. That kind of thing only happens when the relative security situation for the refugees is better in Afghanistan than Pakistan.
oddly enough, i agree with both trent and a.l. here.
the democratic approach – including that of the so called democrats for national security – is half hearted at best. the current homeland security initiatives are also lacking in various ways and over-reliant on social control stopgap measures rather than an innovative and effective approach that would get and deserve as much respect as this administrations current strategy on the attack component of this situation.
how long it will all last depends on how we look at it. as far as im concerned, the most important factors of all of these arguments are not the short term negatively defined sacrifices we make, but rather the positively defined total policy changes that will be beneficial to us without the limit of any time stamp. a vigorous and unpredictable military that is fully capable of defending and advancing our freedom and intervene to ensure the basic freedom of the world, is not something that will lose its value in 2 years, 10 years, or in a generation.
the same is true with effective homeland security that recognizes that safe air travel, nuclear threat prevention, biochemical response, health system overhauls, and coordination between all facets of emergency services, etc are all just as important as hunting down any terror threat, anytime, anywhere.
i have come a long way personally from voting against bush in 2000 to the point where i am adamant in my support of bush in 2004. i appreciate what bush has done well, to the point where i have personally changed my opinion of him. that does not mean i think his administration is as succesful at homeland security as it could be. but for the democrats to have any chance of gaining my vote back in 2004 they will have to show much more than a desire to not lose. they have to go above and beyond the current admin in proving to all of us that they want to win, and arent just saying so as a political calculation.
honestly, i have come to have so many problems with the democratic party as a whole (mostly because of my feeling that the party has so deeply and permanently betrayed the principles i had always thought we shared) that i may never enthusiastically vote for a democrat again. that isnt to say of course that the republicans automatically have my vote either. they have a habit of destroying any chance they get with that — what with the rampant homophobia, the constant lapses into hysteria just as bad as the worst of the ultra-left, and all the rest.
just going to have to wait and see which candidates actually earn my vote. their reasons for making their choice of positions on foreign policy and homeland defense will be critical to my decisions.
Balagan –
Wait till this wekeend, when I write my screed on the Democrats…
A.L.
A.L.,
You aren’t wrong about the need for a better homeland security – but you are wrong in stating that the Democrats are for national security when all they want is “homeland security” and we can never buy enough “homeland security” to make us secure. Or do you really think we can?
You may not believe Bush is paying enough attention to homeland security, but I prefer a president who places a priority on taking the war to our enemies rather than passively awaiting for the next attack. Too many of us have forgotten that Clinton’s limp-wristed response to Mogadishu, among other events, led bin Laden to perceive us a paper tiger. Bush offers us Churchill – and as no Democrat is yet able to offer full-throated support for unilateral military action in defense of the nation – the Democrats offer us Chamberlain. And until they can, it is preposterous to claim the Democrats have a “national security” policy.
If the Democrats don’t change, I think we both know which way America is going to choose in ’04, and probably in ’08 as well.
Ennh, you’re all wrong. The US public rewards Bush in 2004 with solid majority as a reward for being a strong leader. By 2006 we will be back to 50%-land as the American public forgets about terrorism as an issue and interests start to eye another peace dividend. BUT all bets are off if there is another serious hit or the revealing of a serious plot. I can’t imagine what kind of spin cycle that would set off.
Bush offers us Churchill? My God, have you ever listened to the *man speak*?
“Well, first of all, we’ll put together a force structure who meets the threats on the ground. And we’ve got a lot of forces there, ourselves. And as I said yesterday, anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice. There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don’t understand what they’re talking about, if that’s the case.
“Let me finish. There are some who feel like — that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on. We’ve got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. Of course we want other countries to help us — Great Britain is there, Poland is there, Ukraine is there, you mentioned. Anybody who wants to help, we’ll welcome the help. But we’ve got plenty tough force there right now to make sure the situation is secure. We always welcome help. We’re always glad to include others in. But make no mistake about it — and the enemy shouldn’t make any mistake about it — we will deal with them harshly if they continue to try to bring harm to the Iraqi people.”
Churchill? He’s not even FDR. We got attacked by stateless Islamic fundamentalists and in response we’ve destroyed the dispicable though secular government of an Arab nation. Instead of “We shall fight them on land…” we get “Bring them on!” And this, of course, in response to the death and injury of American soldiers. Please.
And by the way, since people are so happy to trot out poor limp-wristed Chamberlain’s ghost, let’s not forget that bin Laden’s primary complaint against the U.S. was the presence of our troops in Saudi Arabia. Now we’re pulling out our troops. Where are the cries of “appeasement” now?
“Bush offers us Churchill? My God, have you ever listened to the *man speak*?”
So Churchill was more eloquent. There is more to leadership than eloquence; I’m sure there were some mighty fine talkers among the Vichy French.
“And by the way, since people are so happy to trot out poor limp-wristed Chamberlain’s ghost, let’s not forget that bin Laden’s primary complaint against the U.S. was the presence of our troops in Saudi Arabia. Now we’re pulling out our troops. Where are the cries of “appeasement” now?”
So you’re incapable of telling the difference between conceding to terrorist demands and making a decision based on a different situation? Troops were in Saudi Arabia in order to defend the Saudis against Saddam. That need isn’t there anymore, for some reason that escapes me, so we’re moving the troops where they’ll be more welcome/less in danger/more useful.
Or would you rather we just keep them there out of spite?
Clue,
Bush as Churchill relates to his desire to take the war to the enemy rather than nervously pacing the halls waiting for the next attack – which is all the Democrats offer with their incessant complaining about “homeland security.” I’m not a big fan of Bush’s speaking style – but I just don’t care about that relative to national security and defeating our enemies where they live. Pick your most articulate Democrat and, despite that chances are he or she is flat wrong on this issue.
And if you don’t understand how state support is vital to al-Queda carrying out attacks like September 11, then you don’t much understand the threat. Sure, they can hurt us in small ways without state support – and after Afghanistan and Iraq, my bet is few states are willing to step forward as al-Queda’s host. Because if they do, I bet they understand “regime change” no matter how poorly Bush articulates it or how little they know English.
But Bush’s speaking skills are beside the point, aren’t they? What this really comes down to is we either win the war on terrorism overseas or lose it here at home. Bush as clearly chosen to win overseas – whereas the Democrats believe they can somehow win by federalizing public safety programs in major urban areas.
But they really aren’t serious, are they? Democrats are going to give drivers licenses to immigrants, legal or not, in California, without regard to security. Democrats complain that we are still vulnerable – but they complain about the Patriot Act – and does anyone really believe a less intrusive set of security measures will be more effective in protecting us? The Democrat focus on “homeland security” is really about four gross political calculations: an opportunity to poke at Bush, since we can never do enough to protect homeland security; an opportunity to burnish “national security” credentials without endorsing the cruel but potentially necessary need for war; an opportunity to lobby on behalf of big city mayors and public employee unions (or have you forgotten the Democrat hold-out for union power in the Homeland Security Dept. authorizing bill?) for more federal cash; and finally an opportunity to highlight the opportunity cost of Bush’s tax cuts. It’s about all of those things, but it isn’t about homeland security.
i really dont see how keeping our troops in saudi arabia just so bin laden is happy is any different than pulling our troops out of saudi arabia just so bin laden is happy. bin laden and his psychophants are going to hate us and use what we do against us either way. i vote we do what we think is militarily best to hunt him and his down instead of letting our fear of his video tapped pronouncements dictate our military strategy. robert is 110% correct (gets bonus points for stating the obvious 🙂 ), our troops have been pulled out of saudi arabia because the reason they were there no longer exists. not to mention the additional benefit of allowing us to exert much more pressure on the house of saud and to move our military around with less restriction. personally i see the withdrawl as a win-win situation for us and a means of depriving bin laden of 1 topic out of 1000 to rant about.
“Democrats complain that we are still vulnerable – but they complain about the Patriot Act – and does anyone really believe a less intrusive set of security measures will be more effective in protecting us?”
tim, i dont think its a matter of more or less intrustive. we have to remember what we are fighting for here. there is a validity to the claim that if we give away our freedom then we are playing right into the hands of the terrorists and the ultra-paranoid. there is an equal validity to the claim that if we spend all our time navel gazing over the remote possibility of becoming a police state that we will ignore the very real police states, terror states, and terrorist organizations without state borders which are staring us right in the face – at the expense of our own lives and freedom.
in a soundbite: it is a fool who chooses between security and freedom. what we need to advance is both.
our strongest weapons against terror happen to be our freedom, military, economics, and ability to coordinate the information we have. a winning strategy combines all of these along with the smarts to use them.
Balagan,
I do not disagree. I do not wish to sacrifice essential liberties and civil rights to secure ourselves from terrorism – which is why I think the Democrat notion of “we’re failing homeland security” is mendacious. They want it both ways: Patriot Act is a dire threat to individual liberties and rights; but the Administration is lax on security. O.k., I don’t know how they square that circle, but I’m not a Democrat so I’m not genetically hardwired to drink that Koolade.
We cannot fully secure ourselves at home without completely recasting our society – we are too big, too free, our borders are too long and there are far too many targets to think we can immunize ourselves from terrorism without imposing a near-totalitarian police state. And no amount of money spend on first responders will protect us either. We simply cannot win the war on terrorism without defeating the enemy in his home – and the Democrats have no stomach for that.
The roots of terrorism lie not in economics but in the dysfunctional character of the Arab/Muslim political culture. David Pryce-Jones’ book “The Closed Circle” describes this. The long-term solution to terrorism is to change that political culture, as we changed the political cultures of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany after WWII. The conquest of Iraq and the injection of consensual government amidst the ubiquitous tyrannies of the Middle East is the first step in this campaign. That is what Bush is doing, quite consciously. That so many seem unable to understand this strategy is evidence they are a lot less intelligent than Bush is.
The group within the Democratic Party that understood National Security affairs and worked to enhance the security of the US died with Henry Jackson back in the 1980s. Zell Miller is the last survivor.