BUSH'S FAILURE TO PROTECT US FROM TERRORISM

From the Nation:

What inhibits rational planning and management, he asserts, is that the Bush Administration has an ideological objection to a strong federal role in domestic security. Much of the crucial infrastructure--perhaps more than 90 percent of it--is in the hands of commercial interests. If the Administration were serious about making Americans more secure, it would have to intervene forcefully in the private sector, which would likely raise industry costs. "The Administration has made it very clear it is not interested in regulation," Flynn says. "So much of homeland security then ends up being just a talkfest." Flynn characterizes the White House attitude this way: "Homeland security costs too much money and involves too much government, so we have to go straight to the source"--that is, the terrorists. "It's a seductive argument," he adds. "We can deal with the problem over there and don't have to conduct assessments and make investments here.... But we'll never succeed at eliminating these problems at the source and go around the planet and identify every possible angry young man who has the means to do what happened on 9/11. It's a fool's game."

And

Is Bush, with his less-than-everything approach, assuming any political risk? "People cannot believe," Flynn remarks, "that no one in the federal government has inspected security plans for chemical plants or that the US Coast Guard has conducted only ten port-vulnerability studies in the past year." If there is another terrorist assault on the country, he adds, "there will be an accounting, and people will be shocked by how little has been done. The American people will be enraged." Maybe not, says Daalder. "The American people cannot fathom that Bush isn't doing everything. Another attack could either reinforce the notion that he's trying to protect the country or that he's incapable. I used to think this was a golden issue for Democrats: tax cuts for 1 percent of Americans or security for 100 percent. But the American people cannot comprehend that a US President is not doing all that is necessary and not spending all the money that needs to be spent."

Click here.

As I said in my ROARING NINETIES post below, neo-liberal ideology is putting the US in grave danger in multiple ways; the willful blindness of rank and file Americans is allowing this to happen. If the situation doesn't turn around soon, we're screwed.

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