London calling

It's a world of laughter
- A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
- And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
- That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all

- It's a Small World After All
-
Written by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman

That song is synonymous with Disney - the happiest place on earth.

But it's also symptomatic of the tragedy Thursday when three subway trains and a bus in London, England were bombed by terrorists.

Of course, it's not the first terrorist attack since 9/11. It's not the first time one of our allies in the War On Iraq have been targeted on their home turf. And, dare I say ... it won't be the last.

If memory serves me correctly, we went to war in Iraq cause they had WMDs. No, I mean, cause Saddam was bad. No, I'm sorry ... it was to liberate the Iraqi people. Oh, wait. Now I remember the REAL reason we're at war there. It's to fight them there instead of here.

Is that way the Brits went to war, too? So they could fight terrorism in Iraq instead of on double-decker buses and the London Underground? The people of England have expressed great concern over their involvement in the quandary known as Iraq. As have the people of the United States.

What will Thursday's attacks do to their resolve? I'm betting it's a very polarizing issue. Many will state, "See. I told you they're bad. We have to kill them all now." Others will say, "See. I told you. We shouldn't have stuck our noses in where they don't belong."

Sadly, both are right.

Frankly, I think that we're in a war of choice. But much like the Superman ride at Six Flags Darien Lake, you can't get off in the middle ... not matter how much your stomach churns. We have to get through it. And we have to do our damndest to fight back those that would hate us for being us. But we also have to learn from our mistakes.

Mistakes.

Yup, I said it. We're not infallible. According to some, that would make me part of the "Blame America First Crowd." I'm not blaming us first. Just saying that there's blame to go around. A war of choice is a mistake. And we deserve the blame for it.

Now it's possible - likely even - that some of the world would still hate us even if we hadn't gone to war in Iraq. They'd hate us for Afghanistan. They'd hate us for Israel. They'd hate us for shaving off our facial hair and not putting Allah first. But maybe they wouldn't hate us enough to continue attacking us.

Cause WE were attacked this Thursday. Yeah, the location was London, but that was an attack on what we stand for. And just as the flag stands for the United States, so do our allies. Attack the flag and you're attacking the U.S. Attack our allies and you're attacking the U.S.

And in an ever shrinking world - one where you're with us ... or you're the terrorists - it's time we're aware that we have to share this ball of mud and grass. And maybe the best first step would be to stop throwing it at one another.

Securing the homeland ...

Let's play a little game of "use your imagination" here.

Imagine, if you will, that you've got a Civil War era farmhouse on a nice big plot of land ... surrounded by a normal old picket fence. You've got a shed, a barn, and just for pretend sake, here, a chicken coop filled with chicks. Pretend it's the nicest chicken coop in the world. Everyone envies it. And one day, inexplicably, some cretin from the next township takes his pickup truck and rams into it - killing about 3,000 of your chickens.

Let's imagine that you find out the driver of the truck was named John Smouse. He and his family despise you. The even sent a tape into the local community television station to let the world know that it was them who killed your chicks and they're awfully proud of it, too.

So. What do you do?

If you're George Bush, you round up all the Smouses (or would that be Smice?) and take them far far away where no one will hurt them. Then you plow through Farmer Jones' fields, killing all his corn, wheat, and a good percentage of his livestock. Once that's done, you get a bunch of folks with big tractors to ram through the fences of the Speers farm and sit there - antagonizing the living crap out of those Speers. You send your own tape to community television explaining that since the cowardly Smouses (again - Smice?) attacked you, the creator told you to round up all the Speers and bring them to a deserted part of the area where you can torture them into telling you why the Smouses did such horrible things to you.

Of course, the key to ALL of this is to make sure that you're doing it as far away from your Civil War era farmhouse as possible.

Meanwhile, back at that farmhouse, take the fence down. Paint pro-yourself propaganda on the barn ... and occasionally stand in front of it saying things that may further irritate the Smouses ... and the Speers. After all, they're cut from the same cloth in your eyes. Jump on your tractor and proclaim yourself the victor of this little farm gang fight ... even if the fighting is still going on over at the Speers' farm and the folks that you sent there to do your dirty work get mauled daily and have eggs thrown at them.

Make sure that the eggmunitions that you have are all centralized in the middle of your farm rather than spread around. In fact, it'd be nice to save a couple bucks. Why not close down a couple of those eggmunition centers?

Oh, and don't forget to occasionally say something derogatory about the Scheer family ... cause you heard they may be hiding eggs. And you want them to know that you know.

....ooooOOOOoooo........ooooOOOOoooo.......ooooOOOOoooo.......ooooOOOOoooo....

Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

But this is essentially our strategy for "Homeland Security."

Now, don't look at the quotation marks that I put around the phrase Homeland Security and assume that I'm not interested in protecting the homeland (although, frankly I would be a little more comfortable if we didn't take the phrase DIRECTLY from the Third Reich).

I'm all for making sure we're secure. September 11th was a travesty. It was brutal. It was ugly. And we should do everything in our power to make sure it doesn't happen again. Well, almost everything in our power. I'm not in favor of shredding the Constitution, but other than that - let's get secure, baby.

But we're not working on making ourselves more secure. HOMEland security begins at HOME. We seem much more interested in IRAQIland security.

Insert imaginary Bushie: "But Scott, we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here."

Ah, the use of the universal THEM ... brilliantly employed with the make-believe concept that we have to fight SOMEWHERE. (And I thought Republicans didn't believe in zero-sum games).
Better there than here, right?

I don't recall it being a requirement that we be in a fight at all times ... with someone. I looked it up in the rule book. Not there.

And who is THEM? The Iraqis? They were going to come fight us here? With their WMD, right? Or were the Taliban going to come kill us with heroin?

We could have just spent some time and energy securing the border. Novel concept. And I'm not against bolstering the military. Just not for offensive measures. Ever notice, by the way, that the Pentagon is the home to the "Department of DEFENSE?" Not the Department of Offense. Not even the Department of the MILITARY. We wisely thought - at one point a long time ago - that military in the United States should be a defensive measure.

I'd like to continue to follow that guideline.

Of course, it'd be easier to defend the homeland if the Department of Defense wasn't having its bases closed. Nowhere do we better understand that than on the Canadian border - right here in Niagara Falls, New York - where they're closing our military base to save $180 Million (over what, 20 years?), while we've spent nearly 10 times that over the last 18 months in our latest desert paradise, Iraq.

One last thought before wrapping this up; while I would like our immigration policy to be more open and comprehensive, I would like our borders to be less porous. Bring the military home and line them up on the Mexican AND Canadian borders to make sure people we don't want in aren't getting in.

To summarize: Homeland Security should be about keeping the military at home to play defense IF need be. Not across the oceans stirring up beehives and creating new enemies. And it's the Constitution we're trying to defend. Let's not shred it to save it. In other words, kill the Patriot Act.