One has to admire the Americans in one sense.. While the motk will complain unceasingly about 'bailing out other countries all over the world', and the morality of what is commonly and mistakenly seen as an 'oil grab'.. thay're possibly keeping their collective mind off what's happening in their own back yard..
Lets leave the economic slowdown, the reluctance of foreign money to come to the US, the 3 trillion dollar budget for fiscal next year, the increasing street violence and the spiral of what may well be a sizeable minority of American youth into a somwhat twisted version of the 60's.. with the emphasis on ennui and nihilism rather than the Age of Aquarius and free love.. Lets leave those concerns for a moment, and look at the Department of Homeland Security..
A frightening organisation that is.. one which will be closely watched by countries the likes of Britain, Australia, Canada, and the states that were the USSR..
Mind you those latter will be smiling, to see how close this American version of the Secret Police coms to that which they endured under the KGB..
The goal of this exercise is laudable.. to make the country a safer place to live..
But the logistics alone of this move are staggering.. Merging agencies as diverse as the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency..pushing a venerable old department the likes of the Customs Service which has had protocols of it's own since 1789.. the cost of office stationary alone will be tens of millions..
A concern this is.. what with all these departments now having to fight each other for a slice of the pie..
A note about the American Customs Service here.. Seattle's not the busiest port in the US by a long shot.. but on average 1.5 million containers are offloaded from foreign ships every year there..
As it is now.. there are certainly not enough men..dogs..bodies available to search them all.. absurd to think they could..
This is what the Homeland Security Department should be looking at.. rather than merging these separate agencies..
It should be a small committee.. with powers to direct fresh funds into departments they see has a need for them.. due to overt threat..
But who's being naive here.. after all this is government..