Quote:
Originally posted by sarettah@Nov 13 2002, 06:56 PM
Back when the Homeland Security issue came up in 9/2001... I maintained and I still do, that this is more properly handled by already existing organizations.
The Airport security should have been handled by Coast Guard... Dept of Transportation controls the Airports and they control the Coast Guard.... Perfect combination... The borders should be handled by Customs and INS...
To do it effectively would require beefing up the Coast Guard, INS and Customs... But, the organizations already exist, they actually do know how to do the job... We would need to give them enough money to do the job...
But nopers, instead let's create another department, lets add to the bureaucracy and red tape. Lets make more cabinet positions and endlessly debate what we should do about "Homeland Security"...
When I was in the Navy (74-82) I was stationed with many Marines and Coasties.... We all knew what our roles were supposed to be...
Navy... get the marines over to wherever we need to be... Give them the cover with artillery from miles out, give them the air support....
Marines... Go kick some ass....
Coasties... Protect the coast and the Country...a domestic force...
|
It took the Defense Department about ten years - some say more - to begin functioning as a unit, and that was basically the merging of two cabinet departments. The degree of infighting between the components within the DOD still hampers mission readiness and needlessly inflates budgets.
This is going to be a merger of a popouri of parts of various departments thrown together. I think it will take longer to get it up to speed, and it will do so no matter how the union question is decided. I personally think it will make intellegence analysis and anti-terrorism law enforcement efforts more difficult, at least in short run, while they figure out the "thick book of rules" required to run ANY Federal Department.
What ... a common sense approach like let the Coast Guard take over airport security? Way too simple, when we can spent a couple billion shuffling people around, create some new departments with even more redundancy than we had before, and a whole new playground for GS-19's to fight turf wars in.