The Terrorist Attack Will Not Be Launched From Granny's Diaper
Democratic congressmen Jerrold L. Nadler, Edward J. Markey and Bennie G. Thompson write in The New York Times about where security forces are needed -- in our ports:
MILLIONS of cargo containers are unloaded from ships each year at American seaports, providing countless opportunities for terrorists to smuggle and unleash a nuclear bomb or weapon of mass destruction on our shores.To counter this threat, Congress passed a law five years ago mandating that by July 2012, all maritime cargo bound for the United States must be scanned before it is loaded on ships. But the Obama administration will miss this deadline, and it is not clear to us, as the authors of the law, whether it ever plans to comply with the law.
Over the years, terrorists have shown themselves to be frighteningly inventive. They have hidden explosives in printer cartridges transported by air and embedded explosives in the shoes and underwear of airline passengers. The cargo containers arriving on ships from foreign ports offer terrorists a Trojan horse for a devastating attack on the United States. As the Harvard political scientist Graham T. Allison has put it, a nuclear attack is "far more likely to arrive in a cargo container than on the tip of a missile."
But for the past five years, the Department of Homeland Security has done little to counter this threat and instead has wasted precious time arguing that it would be too expensive and too difficult, logistically and diplomatically, to comply with the law. This is unacceptable.
An attack on an American port could cause tens of thousands of deaths and cripple global trade, with losses ranging from $45 billion to more than $1 trillion, according to estimates by the RAND Corporation and the Congressional Research Service.
Unfortunately, that doesn't allow power-mad tiny despots (aka unskilled labor in positions of authority) to order Business Class-flying accountants and lawyers to "assume the position!" (Okay, so they don't bark that, but they might as well.)
To counter this threat, Congress passed a law five years ago mandating that by July 2012, all maritime cargo bound for the United States must be scanned before it is loaded on ships.
So, congress passed a law requiering forien governments to outfit THEIR ports for US bound cargo?
I'm not a fan of Obama by any strech of the imagination, but how was he supposed to do that?
lujlp at June 28, 2012 2:17 AM
If anyone didn't see it, here's what Sam Harris wrote in "The End of Faith," 2005:
".......Even if we acknowledge that stopping drug use is a justifiable social goal, how does the financial cost of our war on drugs appear in light of the other challenges we face? Consider that it would require only a onetime expenditure of $2 billion to secure our commercial seaports against smuggled nuclear weapons. At present we have allocated a mere $93 million for this purpose. How will our prohibition of marijuana use look (this comes at a cost of $4 billion annually) if a new sun ever dawns over the port of Los Angeles? Or consider that the U.S. government can afford to spend only $2.3 billion each year on the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are now regrouping. Warlords rule the countryside beyond the city limits of Kabul. Which is more important to us, reclaiming this part of the world for the forces of civilization or keeping cancer patients in Berkeley from relieving their nausea with marijuana? Our present use of government funds suggests an uncanny skewing — we might even say derangement — of our national priorities. Such a bizarre allocation of resources is sure to keep Afghanistan in ruins for many years to come. It will also leave Afghan farmers with no alternative but to grow opium. Happily for them, our drug laws still render this a highly profitable enterprise........"
lenona at June 28, 2012 6:41 AM
Sometimes it feels like my kid's diaper is launching a terrorist attack...
NicoleK at June 29, 2012 1:22 PM
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