Making the U.S. more secure – not!

The goal of ridding the word of terrorists is a laudable one. However, if we eliminate Osama bin Laden but, in the process, elevate others who are every bit as dangerous as he, the world will not be a safer place.

It has been reported that President Bush has sought the assistance of the leaders of four terrorist states, including Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, the man believed to be behind the bombing of Pan Am 103. In fact, Mr. Bush recently froze the assets of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which has been working to overthrow this merciless dictator.

The most troubling revelation to come out of the Bush White House thus far is that the president now is supporting the creation of a Palestinian state. Who would lead that state? Yasser Arafat, a man many believe responsible for 30 years of hijackings and suicide bombings – not to mention the deaths of many Americans and countless Israeli civilians: men, women and children.

Also, the citizens of our own country will not be any safer by giving the attorney general broad new powers to spy on us and tap our phones. The attacks of Sept. 11 did not occur because the United States didn’t have the power to track and stop terrorists. They happened simply because the agencies responsible for protecting us didn’t do their jobs.

We were told that no one imagined that anyone would use our planes as guided missiles. Not so! On Sept. 13, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that in 1995, a plot to do just that was uncovered by Philippine police when they arrested Abdul Hakim Murad, a terrorist linked to Osama bin Laden. The paper quoted Chief Superintendent Avelino Razon, who said the plot, which was discovered in Murad’s laptop computer, was called “Project Bojinka” and that this information was passed on to the U.S. government.

Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival, Inc. reports that in 1998, in a hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information on “Foreign Terrorists in America,” producer Steven Emerson shared information he gathered for his public television documentaries and told members: “We now face the distinct possibilities of mass civilian murder, the likes of which have not been seen since World War II.” His research was downplayed by Dale Watson, then chief of the International Terrorism section of the National Security Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Watson told the panel that, although the Bureau had identified “a significant and growing organizational presence” of foreign terrorists in the U.S., the FBI had the ability to track their activities and had them under control.

However, Watson did confirm that the FBI had uncovered a plan, code name “Bojinka,” in the computer of World Trade Center mastermind Ramzi Yousef, to destroy air carriers in a simultaneous operation. What he didn’t tell the panel is the FBI also had knowledge that the terrorists planned to use our planes as flying bombs.

Just last August, a flight school in Minnesota contacted the Bureau to report a “peculiar” Arab who wanted to take 747 flight simulator training to learn how to steer, but not to take off and land.

On Sept. 22, Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times reported that on Sept. 10, the day before the terrorists struck, United States intelligence agencies “detected discussions between Osama bin Laden’s lieutenants of an impending ‘big attack.'” Furthermore, the discussions were between bin Laden’s supporters here in the U.S. and senior members of his al-Qaida organization. Nevertheless, the conversations were not discovered until after the tragedy had occurred because, according to the unnamed senior administration official, it takes time to “sift through loads of that day’s collection to find valuable material.”

It might be helpful to know how many Arabs now are residing in the United States, but don’t ask the Census Bureau. Nicholas Kulish of The Wall Street Journal reported that the 2000 Census gave respondents a choice of 126 ethnic and racial combinations, going so far as to include subcategories of Pacific Islanders, but “not a single category existed for people of Middle Eastern descent or for Muslims.” Why? The Census Bureau gets its orders from the White House Office of Management and Budget. Apparently the Clinton administration just didn’t think that information was important for us to know.

We will not be any safer with a national identity card. For all practical purposes we already have one. It’s called a driver’s license. However, we have gone to great extremes to make sure anyone, whether in the country legally or illegally, can obtain one.

Finally, we will not be any safer by federalizing airport security. Can you name any federal agency that does a better job than the private sector? I offer the growth of United Parcel Service and Federal Express as an alternative to the U.S. mail in the delivery of packages. With that, I rest my case.