Will New Department Work?

If you boarded a plane on September 11 and there were four Muslim men from the Middle East under the age of 35 on board there was a good chance your plane was going to be hijacked and flown into a building.

If you boarded another plane on September 11 and there were not four men of that description on board there was no chance your plane was going to be flown into a building.

Every plane flown into a building on September 11 had at least four Muslim men from the Middle East on board.

John Walker Lindh, Richard Reid and Jose Padilla are not from the Middle East. But they do have four things in common: They are all young men, they all converted to Islam, they all traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and they all allegedly joined al Qaeda in making war against America.

No Latvian Lutheran, Ukrainian Orthodox, or Korean Catholic has been discovered attempting to commit acts of terror in the United States.

Creating an entire cabinet department aimed at securing America against Scotch Presbyterian terrorists would be an act of monumental folly. Scotch Presbyterians are not threatening the United States.

Which brings us to President Bush’s proposal to create a new Department of Homeland Security.

To be sure, there are elements of the President’s plan that make sense. Gathering all U.S. agencies charged with protecting U.S. territory against acts of terror under one bureaucratic umbrella and giving them one bureaucratic boss with cabinet-level authority and public exposure is, on its face, a reasonable proposal. (As Rep. Tom Tancredo says elsewhere in this issue, consolidating immigration control functions into one agency was proposed long ago by immigration control advocates.)

At a minimum, we will now have one cabinet secretary to blame if an act of terror is committed on U.S. soil that could have been averted by vigilant government.

But no government agency can succeed in its mission unless that mission is clearly defined and realistically achievable, and unless Congress gives it the resources and legal authority it needs to accomplish the mission.

In a white paper released last week, the White House described the mission of the new Department of Homeland Security as follows:

If the idea were to accomplish these straightforward goals with the least amount of additional government, the tactics would be straightforward, too: Put a moratorium on visas for young Muslim men who fit the terrorist profile, secure the borders so they cannot readily enter the country illegally without a visa, and redouble internal enforcement of immigration laws to round up potential terrorists who slip through the cracks.

Do these three things and young radical Muslim terrorists will not be able to establish cells within the United States for planning and executing new attacks like September 11. On the home front, at least, the war against the terrorists would be won.

But the proposed Homeland Security Department is a complex thing, presuming to address a complex problem. It mentions nothing about suspending visas for young Muslim men, and almost nothing about stopping illegal aliens from flooding across our borders, or removing them once they are here. (See congressional views on this issue).

You would not know from reading the plan for this new agency that the United States was attacked less than a year ago by radical Muslim terrorists in a day of carnage worse than Dec. 7, 1941. You would find no definition of exactly who the enemy is this agency is designed to protect us against. You could just as well assume it was Scotch Presbyterians.

As a result, the plan envisions a massive bureaucracy, with huge potential for growth, engaging in far-flung activities that have nothing to do with stopping young radical Muslim terrorists from entering U.S. territory and killing U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

This new department, for example, will have its own program for speculative scientific and technological research. "America’s vast science and technology base provides us with a key advantage," says the plan. "The department would press this advantage with a national research and development enterprise for homeland security comparable in emphasis and scope to that which has supported the national security community for more than fifty years."

Presumably, this means that as young Muslim men from Saudi Arabia’s rabidly anti-American schools continue to cascade across our borders carrying student visas, well-paid eggheads at Cal-Berkeley and Harvard, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon will struggle with multi-million-dollar government grants to figure out ways to determine—without applying for a political incorrect search warrant—whether or not these visitors are stockpiling radioactive waste in their backyards, or cultivating smallpox in their basements.

The plan also envisions further infringing on the rights of states and local communities. "It would also assist state and local public safety agencies by evaluating equipment and setting standards," says the White House.

"Setting standards," it says. Will that mean setting national standards for local police?

The White House plan also hints at new federal intrusions on private property and industry. See if you can hold your breath long enough to read through this list: "The department," says the White House, "would be responsible for comprehensively evaluating the vulnerabilities of America’s critical infrastructure, including food and water systems, agriculture, health systems and emergency services, information and telecommunications, banking and finance, energy (electrical, nuclear, gas and oil, dams), transportation (air, road, rail, ports, waterways), the chemical and defense industries, postal and shipping entities, and national monuments and icons.

"Working closely with state and local officials, other federal agencies, and the private sector," says the White House, "the department would help ensure that proper steps are taken to protect high-risk targets."

There may not be many properties in America that don’t qualify in some way as potential high-risk targets. Just as deserts were converted into wetlands, and toads and owls into endangered species, by government agencies run amok, a Homeland Security Department could some day reclassify the nation’s wheat farms, suburban industrial parks, baseball fields, football stadiums, and lakeside resorts as terrorism "vulnerabilities" in need of new federal regulations.

Presumably, as radical Islamists, fresh from al Qaeda’s latest training session, move into Michigan and Southern California—as welcome guests of the United States—Homeland Security bureaucrats will be working with local officials to devise rules that will prevent them from disrupting tailgate picnics in the Big Ten and Pac Ten.

America can choose between two strategies for defending our home front in the war against these Middle Eastern terrorists. In the first strategy, we pretend we do not know who our enemy is. In this strategy we freely allow this enemy to enter the country, and then, once he is here, we restrict everyone’s freedom of action for fear they might be one of the visiting terrorists or a U.S. citizen who has been seduced into joining them.

The other strategy starts with the fact that our enemy is a radical Islamic terrorist group, based in the Middle East, using young radical Muslim men, like the September 11 hijackers, to commit acts like those of September 11. In this strategy, we prudently suspend entry visas for young Muslim men until the war is over.

This strategy does not require a massive Homeland Security apparatus. It does require a national political leadership ready to withstand the false charges of ethnic bias that will fly when it starts suspending visas. And it also would require our leaders to give the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol the legal authority they need and the resources they require to virtually shut down illegal immigration, and to deport those illegal aliens who do penetrate the country.

Congress and the President have not given these agencies that mandate while they have been under the leadership of Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft—the toughest conservative in the Bush cabinet. Will they do it under Tom Ridge, the much more "moderate" presumed secretary-to-be of the Homeland Security Department?

Reading between the lines of the White House plan for the Homeland Security Department is not encouraging. The department’s core chore of border security is described as follows: "The department would manage who and what enters our homeland and work to prevent the entry of terrorists and the instruments of terrorism while simultaneously ensuring the speedy flow of legitimate traffic."

It does not say the department will stop illegal aliens. But more importantly, given that the State Department says it dispensed 50,000 new visas to non-Israeli visitors from the Middle East in just the six months between September 11 and March 31, how would any bureaucracy be able to discern among those masses who is a terrorist and who is not?

If, during this war against Middle Eastern Muslim terrorists, tens or even hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern Muslims are invited to circulate freely through our country, how can any government agency, no matter how big and intrusive, stop terrorists from getting in to attack us?

It can’t and it won’t—until we change our strategy and put one sensible and effective barrier at the border instead of thousands of ineffective barriers in every community in the country.

The sole purpose of the reorganization is not to accomplish any additional security but to make the public feel that something is being done. There will be less security because the bureaucracy will be more complex and larger. The left hand now does not know what the right is doing. In the future, the head will not know what either hand is doing.

The terrorists must be laughing at the pitiful steps being taken to counteract their threats and actions. Profiling old ladies for additional searches while allowing young males to pass security checks is a symptom of the stupidity and negligence of our officials. This problem is not confined to low level employees but starts in Congress and the White House.

Excellent commentary, but reason is not tolerated by the majority today, so it will be rabidly but unsubstantially railed against. Don't get frustrated with the flames that ensue - you never know, some may benefit from this bit of logic you have posted.

"But the proposed Homeland Security Department is a complex thing, presuming to address a complex problem. It mentions nothing about suspending visas for young Muslim men, and almost nothing about stopping illegal aliens from flooding across our borders, or removing them once they are here."

Two things bother me: First, the advent of Islam into Mexico and Second, the fact that Arabs were trying to get Hazardous Waste trucking licenses. Why should everyone wait in lines, have their freedom constantly thwarted when we still allow all the doors and windows to remain open. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it doesn't make any sense to me.

Can a nation this stupid survive?

Yes, but the "silent majority" must find it's voice and take action. Soon.

The mugging in New York has had the desired effect: The Federal Government is revealed as clinically insane and incapable of executing the most basic functions for which it was created.

The next blow will be equally shocking and disconcerting. But it took 7 messages for the Pharoh before the Pharoh understood.

Best regards,

Patience people Patience

Since the Woodrow Wilson Administration created the 1st train wreck that became the contemporary Federal Bureaucracy voices have counseled patience.

Time is short and I am too long in the tooth to tolerate any further nonsense. A lifetime of patience has been insufficient.

This Administration has publicly adopted the policy of shooting down an unarmed civilian airliner filled with women and children rather than acknowledge the need and right of the Sovereign Citizen to defend themselves.

I say this: if the American Military harms ONE hair of ONE Civilian because of this insane policy the Bush Administration and Government Bureaucracy will have far more to worry about than Al Quaeda.

Enough already.

Best regards,

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.