Now What?

So, taking into account my brother's "been there, done that, got the t-shirt" message re my plan to get out of Iraq, I think it is important to talk about what we should be doing domestically as we begin to pull out of the conflict. So, here are some thoughts on that...

As I have stated many times in this and other posts, the basic premise of going into Iraq as a way to protect our country is a faulty one. I like to use the analogy of the house that was burglarized...when the twin towers went down, it was akin to an unwelcome intruder coming into our house and stealing from us. Taking the lives of our citizens...destroying our property and stealing our sense of security. Now, if this was your house that was burglarized, what would you do? How would you react? How would you ensure that this would not happen again or, in the very least, that it would be much less likely to happen again? Well, I suppose there are a number of common responses:

1. Call the police, file a report and then tell yourself it was a one time thing and the chances of it happening again are very slim, so just go on with life.
2. Call the police, file a report, then go out and buy the best security system you could afford to make sure that the next time someone tries to enter your house, they will be deterred.
3. Blame the police for not protecting you better and ask them to reorganize themselves. Buy an off-the-shelf security system and assign a color system to remind yourself to be more or less scared. Spend most of your time and resources arming yourself and hiring a posse to go out into your and surrounding communities looking for the people that might have burglarized your house and killing those that look suspicious..and then, when that was done to your satisfaction, go to another community that most likely wasn't involved in the burglary of your house, and do the same thing with the hunting down and the killing.

Hmm. Well, I guess the first two might be more common than the last. Unfortunately, it was the last option that was chosen as a response to the events of September 11, 2001. Rather than putting our vast resources toward protecting ourselves from a (relatively) small group of extremists, we decided that it would be best to go half way around the world and hunt down those who we believed might possibly be responsible for attacking us.

AUTHORS NOTE: I guess I should make myself clear here. Going into Afghanistan and flying some sorties and bombing the terrorist training camps is an acceptable response. It is what Clinton did to a certain extent and it is what Bush started out doing. But, as he is wont to do, he took it too far.

To give you an idea of how out of balance we are currently in regards to protecting ourselves, the 2007 budget for the Department of Homeland Security is $35 Billion. Sounds pretty hefty, eh? Now compare it to the cost of the Iraq occupation...$30 Billion. A month. That's right. We are spending nearly $2B/day or $60B/month on the war. Nearly double the annual budget of the DHS. So, going back the analogy, this would be like putting a chain link lock on your door while you spent more than your mortgage payment on the going out and hunting and killing thing.

So, what do we do? Well, as I like nice round numbers, I will present you with a five prong plan and I will patiently await my brother's scathing opinion on (Author's note...though this may come across as sarcastic, I actually do greatly value my brother's commentary as he is the smartest older brother I have).

1. Do what I said we should do (with minor edits based on my bros feedback) in the last post.
2. Start spending real money on all border security. I'm not talking the 2007 version of the Berlin Wall and I'm not talking about sending 12 million people back to Mexico (see next blog), but I am talking about real security at the borders that is effective and funnels immigrants through the appropriate channels.
3. Strenghten the appropriate channels. Whether it be highway, airport, train station or port, we MUST make our scanning capabilities more robust. I'm certain I am not the only one that has noticed that the security at some airports is more stringent than at others. We need to make sure that every airport has the most up to date security measures available. This should NOT fall on the airlines or local municipalities...this is a matter of national security and should be funded by the National Govt.
4. Work with our friends and our soon-to-be friends abroad to help them implement stronger security at their airports...the more we can work to make the screening more stringent on both ends of the journey and, thus, taking the sole imptetus off us, the better.
5. Spend as much as humanly possible on learning the culture of our perceived enemy and educating ourselves, our diplomats and our citizens on what really makes them tick. This might sound kind of crazy, but I would venture a guess that 90% of our people don't truly understand why we are hated. It certainly doesn't help that Bush makes such assinine statements like "they hate us for our freedom". That is bullshit. They hate us because everything about our society is offensive to their religious sensibilities and, if we become imperialistic at all, they would rather be dead than be subjected to our beliefs. I am not suggesting we change our ways for them, but if we better understood, we would be more knowledgeable citizens which would make us more likely to put the people in power who could effect change.

If we can make it through these steps, we are not only making ourselves more safe from terrorism, but we are making ourselves a better nation and less likely to incur any wrath from other foreign entities moving forward.

Go forward with courage.

jak