``Iraq and the struggle with terrorism are sucking resources across the board,'' says Joel Brenner, the top counterintelligence official in the office of Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell. Meanwhile, ``the Chinese are really making a run at us.''
Bloomberg.com: News
Is it really such a good idea to be focusing such a large portion of our military and intelligence resources on "the terrorists?" Could there possibly be more important issues for our country's defense/safety?
Bloomberg.com: News
Is it really such a good idea to be focusing such a large portion of our military and intelligence resources on "the terrorists?" Could there possibly be more important issues for our country's defense/safety?
8 comments:
The tone of your question indicates that you don't believe terrorism to be a threat.
Care to join me in a tour of the World Trade Center towers?
The tone of your comment seems to suggest you think small groups operating out of caves in Afghanistan are a bigger threat than 1.2 billion Chinese.
I'll compare the damage of government-sponsored wars to "terrorist"-sponsored wars anyday.
Yes. You have about said it all.
Again, care to join me in a tour of the former WTC center site?
I'm not sure what your argument is. Are you saying that because a group caused damage to the U.S., that group is the biggest threat to us? I'm not sure why that would logically be true. And if it was true, why wouldn't we be focusing more of our military spending on American militia groups to prevent another OKC bombing?
You don't buy the idea that islamist groups are plotting to wreak havoc on the west?
Again, 9/11, 3/11, 7/7, Bali, USS Cole, etc., these seem to me to be part of a coordinated effort representing a significant threat to our security. Already these events have caused us to restrict certain liberties and freedoms. Another attack will limit our freedoms even more as we react to it. So, as a person who is very concerned with Liberty, I would think you would also recognize this threat.
I can't tell if you're ignoring the basic point of the post on purpose, or on accident.
The post, nor the article it linked to, in no way suggested that there was no threat from the Middle East. The post addressed proportionality; national threat vs. attention and spending of our country's defense/intelligence resources.
With regard to the last part of your comment, I disagree with the underlying assumption that restricting freedoms must come from attacks.
You may disagree, but it will.
Most people will sacrifice some liberty for security, especially if the percieved threat is great enough, which it will be after another significant attack. There simply are not enough people like you out there looking out for our liberties.
As to the point of your post, the threat from China is secondary in my mind, thus the resources are deployed rationally. Now, if you want to talk about giving intelligence more resources, I'm all ears!!
Whether we should give up liberties, how much we should, and the results and abuses of these powers by the government will be an ongoing theme of this blog.
Suggesting that it is inevitable is no more interesting to me than a suggestion to you that taxes will always be progressive. We're talking ideology here. Ideas can change behavior.
It wasn't always assumed that people would just give up their liberties. In Ben Franklin's day, his sentiment was, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Maybe we can get back to that ideal.
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