I don’t expect I’ll persuade Carpundit to change his general disposition toward issues of national security or foreign policy - nor would he get me to change mine - but it’s worth pointing out that when he says,
I’m all for the Patriot Act renewal, because I see through the ACLU hype about its impact on […]
What he said.
Safe Trains or Star Wars? Fred Kaplan asks.
Madrid, and now London: wake-up calls, as some call them, that mass transit is far more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than airplanes are. So, when will we wake up?
Last year, Congress approved $150 million in grants for security upgrades to local transit agencies. This year, the Senate Appropriations […]
News arrives from Tom Ridge that credible information “pointed to an attack in which terrorists would try to ‘disrupt our democratic process.’” Dimmy Karras watches the announcement and wonders: “what is the point of this press conference?”
Ridge probably would respond with some general remark about how people should be aware of heightened risk, be […]
There are a couple of commentary pieces that deserve further circulation and wider discussion. One, by Brookings fellow Shibley Telhami, argues that if history is any guide, use of force in Iraq will likely increase the resort to terrorism in the Arab world. This is not merely because the action angers the Arab street, but […]
I received an email from a friend (it seems to be making the Internet rounds) featuring safety hazard icons from the ready.gov website, with satirical text accompanying them. If you haven’t seen them, you should take a look at the website directly (like here or here or here). Even without satirical gloss, the drawings are […]
There are three related complaints that need to be made against the current government’s (both the administration and the Congress) approach to domestic security. First - and this is a point the Democrats have made well - is that this is going to cost money. We cannot hide the costs by passing them on to […]
Maureen Dowd went to town on Tom Ridge in this weekend’s Times. Rightfully blasts the marketing and spin obsession of the Homeland Security people. To which I might add: why has Tom Ridge made it a point to appear only in Electoral College swing states? Shouldn’t he be embarrassed to reduce civil defense to such […]
Tom Oliphant’s op-ed in the Globe today lays out the silliness of the government’s homeland defense act - the hypocrisy of its stern warnings at the same time as it shuffles money away from actually helping state and local workers responsible for protection. Combined with the newest recommendation, the article should give us extra […]
The Economist this week lays out the problems facing our defenses against bioterrorism. It notes that the science behind vaccination and chemical antidotes is difficult, but that the difficulties are compounded by the disincentives for private companies to develop and sell such treatments. On the one hand, liability makes firms skittish, because the potential risk […]