Watch it grow
Our bloated government failed us says the 9/11 Commission. The solution to the failure of big, complex, bureaucratic government is to make it bigger, more complex and more bureaucratic:
Among its recommendations, many of which already had become public, the commission recommended creating a new intelligence center and high-level intelligence director. An intelligence-gathering center would bring a unified command to the more than dozen agencies that now collect and analyze intelligence.
Running the center would be a new national intelligence director, reporting directly to the president at just below full Cabinet rank, with control over intelligence budgets and the ability to hire and fire deputies, including the CIA director and top intelligence officials at the FBI, Homeland Security Department and Defense Department.
Yet, the commission concludes, the biggest failing was one of imagination. You can’t legislate imagination. Other recommendations include:
…improved immigration screening to keep terrorists out of the country and a more focused foreign policy approach to reach out to moderate Muslims around the world.
The improved screening is a good idea. Reaching out to Muslims is one of those touchy-feely things that will never affect the desire of the radical few Muslims who want to kill non-Muslims. The results of this commission, though they may make some people feel better, will do little to make us safer if implemented.
Note that it didn’t recommend taking fucking tweezers from people.
July 22nd, 2004 at 8:04 pm
No, but it does have some potential to affect how much cooperation and information the authorities can get from the non-radical many Muslims who don’t, but who know something about those who do.
July 22nd, 2004 at 8:50 pm
Xrlq:
Not only that, but the guys who really hate Americans and want to kill them are rarely the ones who blow themselves up. By improving the American image among the recruiting pool those guys draw from, it makes it harder for them to find people willing to blow themselves up to kill Americans. Maybe then bin Laden and his ilk would have to do their own dirty work.
July 22nd, 2004 at 9:05 pm
Good points, both of you.
July 22nd, 2004 at 11:21 pm
“a new intelligence center and high-level intelligence director” Wasn’t that the definition of the Homeland Security Department and Director?????