It is impossible to know whether another terrorist attack in the United States is imminent, as government officials warn, or whether the Bush administration merely considers Americans due for another booster shot of fear. After all, a terrorized public is a compliant public — and much less likely to protest a war on terrorism doomed by political correctness.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have wasted incalculable resources to maintain the pretense that no one individual is more likely to be a terrorist than any other. Even though al Qaeda immediately identified itself as the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks and explained that it was waging jihad — i.e., a war of race and religion — the United States insisted that race and religion could not be used to profile terrorists.
Had we had not wasted billions of dollars on such a foolish charade, might al Qaeda have been decimated, might Osama bin Laden be dead, might more terrorists be on the run?
The Transportation Security Agency is the most obvious example of squandered resources. Despite the TSA’s expenditure of $6 billion annually, both the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general and the Government Accountability Office concluded two years ago that airports are no safer than they were before the TSA was created.
Who is surprised by that? Any sentient person recognizes the absurdity of a TSA agent pulling aside a 3-year-old for special screening while Mohammed el-Doe sails through security because to single him out might offend him.
Try a one-word policy: tough. If the Western world were under attack by middle-aged blonde women 5 feet 7 inches tall, I would expect to draw special scrutiny and could not reasonably object. It is inexcusable that taxpayers waste $17 million every day on an agency that is demonstrably ineffective.
Consider, too, that while bin Laden reportedly lolls in Pakistan and our troops are overwhelmed in Iraq, the Department of Defense has the resources to devote to domestic spying. The Pentagon may be too short on cash to sufficiently armor combat vehicles, but it has enough money for a Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) program to monitor such threats to the Free World as a Quaker meeting house in Florida and military families staging an anti-war protest outside Fort Bragg, N.C.
No doubt the federal government also continues to build — albeit under a different name and in a different agency — the Total Information Awareness Network that creates dossiers on every American. How many hundreds of millions of federal dollars are spent tracking the grocery purchases of a housewife in Paducah instead of tracking the money flowing through mosques with radical congregations?
Of course, no one wastes money better than the politicians in Washington. One recent morning, I was among the thousands of people caught in the standstill of rush-hour traffic because George W. Bush was having breakfast in the Marriott two blocks from the White House. The Secret Service closed the streets from Constitution Avenue to G Street — not even allowing pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks in that area. How many people missed doctor’s appointments, job interviews or being at the hospital when a grandchild was born, all because of such irrational precautions?
Motorcades only make the president a target; he likely would be safer in the back seat of an unmarked car. Nonetheless, the Secret Service spends thousands of dollars taking the president a few hundred yards from the White House. For its part, Congress spends about $300 million a year on the Capitol Police — an expense of $560,000 per member — and then tells soldiers there isn’t enough money in the budget to supply them with body armor.
But for sheer comic value, perhaps nothing beats a single expenditure by the Department of Homeland Security: “additional monies to allow us to manage our resources more carefully and with more discipline.” In other words, they are spending money because, they say, that saves money.
Meanwhile, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff says he has a “gut feeling” that al Qaeda has regrouped and may be preparing to attack us again. If — God forbid — another attack does occur, terrorists can claim only partial credit. The real victor will be political correctness, which has triumphed over common sense.
Examiner columnist Melanie Scarborough lives in Alexandria.
