<Newsweek article on consolidating “homeland security”

First, everyone wants the US to be secure. Period. And we all know some things have to be done differently.

Next, I don’t think anyone wants the cure to be worse than the illness, to cause more problems than are helped.

I would think they might want to go a bit slowly here. There will be a lot of power in one civilian agency, a whole lot of power. Inevitably, that power will be subject to political pressures. Or a strong individual, such as Hoover.

Also being developed is a more focussed military command for North America. The US is going to be seen as an area of operations, just as Europe or Asia. There will be a military plan for the US even in the absence of any invasion threat.

Between the power residing in the US Presidency and these two commands, fanatics of whatever stripe could theoretically take over the country. The mechanisms would be in place, the command structures, the power.

It would not take the complicity of very many people. And it would be done in the name of security, a temporary exception to constitutional authority until the current threat, whatever it was, had been met. Then, things will return to normal. Very much like hijackers saying that if everyone is calm everyone will be fine.

Right now, for instance, to involve the Coast Guard in a scheme to installl an unconstitutional government would require involving the Treasury Department, a drastic expansion of the plot which could foil it. Under the new plan it would be included in the standard orders.

Knowing it was possible, will fanatics on either side be able to keep their hands off of it? Or would they say a higher calling, of whatever flavor, dictate they have to take over because they could?

We've had a peaceful transition of power in the past, even the last one which was of dubious legality, for a couple of reasons. One is that the American people, as a whole, are law-abiding. And two, there has been no real way for a government to take over completely. So, if you can't do it, you may as well look graceful leaving. Don't know that folks would leave gracefully if they thought they could stay. (Guiliani tried to stay as mayor of New York because he was popular, and New York is still standing, to his surprise, even though there was a transition.)

The USSR was smart enough to have parallel structures in many areas, such as having both the KGB and GRU, or the military leadership and the political (education) officers attached, in order to prevent one bureaucracy from having too much power. As a matter of fact, the heads of the KGB and GRU were always career officers from the other service. Their allegiance had to be to the political leadership.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t do something. I think we have to be careful about a guard dog which could easily bite us instead of the bad guys.

And, realistically, if what had been in place had functioned, WTC would have never happened. None of what is being proposed would have been necessary to stop that. I’m sure there are smarter plans out there.

I’m hoping the cure isn’t the monster which does what it is supposed to prevent.

Arf