The obvious truth is that in the globalization era, the phrase "homeland security" is an Orwellian oxymoron — particularly for a country with 9,600 miles of land and sea borders, 14,857 airports and 185 major seaports handling an estimated 214,000 ships a year. Clearly a forward strategy against terrorism is needed — which may about the only thing Donald Rumsfeld and I agree on.
Back to Main
June 7, 2005
Litter Boxes
Comments
On Litter Boxes
Billmon says: As national security scholar Graham Allison noted years ago, if someone has a nuke they want to export to the United States, the best way to do it would be to wrap it in a bale of marijuana.
That is correct, by why export a nuke to the U.S. when the U.S. has enough nukes. Why not take the money needed to make and smuggle a nuclear device into the U.S. and bribe some low ranking officer into taking one from those huge stockpiles inside the U.S.?
If a nuclear device goes off in the U.S. that would be my very first suspicion.
I’ve got it: we’re in Bizarro World. Everything that is supposed to make us more secure is in fact making us more vulnerable.
It’s the only rational explanation of these idiotic developments.
Didn’t we read months ago that the U.S. troops stood by while the weapons stashes were removed? Why does this news come as such a surprise?
Posted by: hopping madbunny | Jun 7 2005 20:00 utc | 2
Not only litter: Border Patrol Let Murder Suspect Into U.S.
On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the border crossing at Calais, Me., carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood.
American customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Mr. Despres. Then they let him into the United States.
The next day, a gruesome scene was discovered in Mr. Despres’s hometown, Minto, New Brunswick: the decapitated body of Frederick Fulton, a 74-year-old musician, was found on Mr. Fulton’s kitchen floor, and his wife was found stabbed to death.
I wrote yesterday (in a reply to Noisette if I recall) that I believe there will be some kind of strike or strikes on US soil “soon” (my guess: within the next 2 years).
As I think I wrote, if the Brits and the French with far more effective security aparatuses couldn’t stop the IRA or the GIA to occasionally blow up a subway station, what chance do we have, realistically?
I think things will get a lot worse before they get better. The US is the eye of the storm right now.
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 8 2005 7:11 utc | 4
B. Raman, Asia Times, on the 1993 Mumbai Blasts. 14.3.03
Excerpt:
He rang me up and asked: “As you think back of your arrival at the spot, what is the first thought that comes to your mind?” I replied: “As I reached there, I noticed that the street children of Mumbai were playing cricket near the scene, totally unconcerned over any dangers they might face. A large number of people had gathered around the scene to watch the police and the fire brigade in action. There was no fear in their eyes. Within two hours, Rajesh Pilot, then the minister of state for internal security in the Government of India at New Delhi, was on his way to Mumbai in an Air Force plane to visit the spot and supervise the investigation. Later, Mr Narasimha Rao, the then prime minister of India, flew to Mumbai and went round the places where the explosions had taken place, unmindful of any danger. When a nation, its leaders and its people refuse to be afraid of terrorists and to be intimidated by them, no terrorist and no State-sponsor of terrorism can win against that nation.”
Then to his discomfiture, I told him: “Look at the way you behaved after 9/11. In India, after the terrorists strike, people run towards the spot — some to help the victims and the police and some out of curiosity and the political leaders consider it their duty to demonstrate to the terrorists that they are not intimidated. In the US, one saw people running away from the spot helter-skelter. President Bush and Vice-President Cheney practically disappeared from public view except for brief appearances ontelevision. Nobody knew where they were. Bush was being flown from city to city so that terrorists would not know where he was. In the television visuals, one could see fear and confusion in their eyes. By your initial reactions, you have already lost the initiative to the terrorists.”
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/mar/14raman.htm
The fear of terrorism that Americans exhibit – and it existed pre 9/11 – is really dismaying.
Fear leads to powerlessness. The American brand of fear seems truly irrational, apocalytpic. Anthrax, bio terror, flu scares, smallpox scares, global warming, and terror, terror, terror…. Science fiction right in the living room. These fears are also very emotional, very childish: see above the US diplomats who are prevented from flying after an attack.
While many see that fear is hyped to justify agression, American fears are also deeply unifying fears – everyone can be afraid of the same thing at the same time.
In the EU the fear-mongering right has to restrict the scope of fear and attach it to HATE – hate of foreignors (who are cheaters, criminals, etc.). It is disguised venom and agression, and mostly understood as such. In the US, hate is projected outwards, far away overseas onto Muslims in the ME.
Fear is used both by pro- and anti- war groups (the invasion of Iraq augments the risk of terrorism..), Republicans and Democrats. This is another reason that the Democrats cannot get a grip – they cannot exploit the publics rational fears – fear of a corrupt governement (!), fear of illness, unemployment, poverty. They cannot defuse the irrational hate – they need it too.
So the war on Terra ™ will continue and the Dept. of Homeland Security will have to go on bumbling about busy with cat litter, and checking Swiss chocolates for poison, which involves some very complicated coordination with the FDA.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 8 2005 13:31 utc | 5
@b, you really need to see the picture to get the complete willies.
Posted by: beq | Jun 8 2005 14:10 utc | 6
@beq – thanks – well they were right not to stop him, but it makes you wonder what else is getting over borders – pretty much anything I guess.
Orchestrating Terrorism by Paul Craig Roberts
The US has a vast and very expensive Homeland Security bureaucracy with nothing to do. There hasn’t been a terrorist attack in America since 2001. There have been a vast quantity of terror alerts, the purpose of which was to scare Americans into supporting an unnecessary and illegal aggressive attack on Iraq.
As very few, if any, real terrorists have turned up, the FBI has resorted to creating terrorists by soliciting Muslim-Americans and appealing to them with schemes to aid “jihadists.” Recently, two American citizens were caught in a FBI sting. One, an Ivy-League educated physician, is charged with agreeing to provide medical care to wounded holy warriors in Saudi Arabia. The other, a famous jazz musician, is charged with agreeing to train jihadists in martial arts.
Posted by: beq | Jun 8 2005 17:04 utc | 8
Nation Master gives the US as the second country from the top for developed country murder statistics. (The first is Mexico, the third is Poland, and so on down.) The US is first of these for ‘murder per capita’. (I suppose, couldn’t squeeze it out right now.)
It lists 12,658 murders for 1999.
Very roughly, just to get an idea of the kind of numbers we are talking about (I just multiplied..it is true that the murder rate has been sinking, because of advances in emergency medecine, other factors too..)
Since 9/11, 50,000 American residents have been murdered in the Homeland. (That does not include manslaughter, which is a different category.) Now, it is of course likely or certain that a few of these murders were committed by people who slipped over a border, or otherwise entered the country illegally, or invisibly.
How many Americans have been killed by terrorists? Setting aside Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel?
I had a quick google, but the standard US counts of ‘deaths by terrorism’ -much disputed and quarelled over, reports are amended and retracted, as the MSM has amply reported – are for the World …
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 8 2005 17:06 utc | 9
Senate panel OKs sweeping FBI subpoena powers
The U.S. Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday sided with the White House by proposing broad new subpoena powers for the FBI to use in counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations, officials said.
After hours of secret deliberations, the oversight panel voted 11-4 to send to the full Senate a proposal that would give the FBI the power to subpoena without judicial approval a wide range of personal documents ranging from health and library records to tax statements.
Posted by: beq | Jun 8 2005 17:50 utc | 10