jon@dmcityview.com

Homeland tomfoolery

This is nothing new: big government waste; paying for our sins; young men and women dying; being angry about it; getting more and more used to it. It happens everyday. A bus blows up. A helicopter goes down. We're told our persistence is necessary. We're told to be scared. We're told it will all be OK.

Yet when $387,000 worth of television and radio ads are purchased by the Iowa Department of Public Health, encouraging residents to be "heroes," by keeping on-hand items such as flashlights, water and first-aid kits, it annoyed me to no end. So did the fact that Polk County sent out a Request for Proposal for an expert on terrorism and mass destruction for all of Central Iowa. Why? Because despite all of this terrible danger we are in, these ads are bought and this expert is being hired simply because the funds are available to do so.

Read Congressman Tom Latham's Web site. "The biggest concern to Congressman Latham is that Iowa's first responders get the support they need to protect Iowans and themselves from terror. Through the Homeland Security Subcommittee, Congressman Latham has worked to secure over $80 million in the past two years for Iowa law enforcement, fire fighters, and EMTs. These funds ensure that Iowa's local first responders are provided adequate funding to support their work on the frontline of the implementation of homeland security, but also that they are given flexibility to use the funds in order to meet the unique needs of each community in Iowa." Know what all that means? Get while the gettin's good, that's what.

By the end of the year, Iowa will have received some $21 million over the past 24 months to keep us safe from terrorists - and tornadoes. Huh? Oh yeah, since we really aren't seen as a target-rich environment, folks in small towns who demand their fair share make sure they get their fair share by insisting that the extravagant equipment they want to get their hands on will be useful in other situations not regarding homeland security. Never mind that it's homeland security funding, according to David Miller, administrator of Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division, who spoke to The Des Moines Register in July, "It may not be a terrorist who brings down a building. It could be an explosion in a grain elevator that has people trapped, and this gives us that heavy rescue capability we need."

How does that old saying go? "Haste makes waste"? Well, never has it been more repulsively true than when it comes to this sham known as homeland security. The office itself, of course, is useful, as we have had terrorists attack us here at home, and they will likely do so again. But spending a little bit on a lot of different things just so that no one feels they are getting the shaft is the utterly wrong approach. If there's nothing to secure, why secure it, or, moreover, why pretend to secure it?

I'm all for pork, and no one brings it home like our delegates in Washington, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that we're fighting the good fight by reminding people to keep water and Band-Aids on hand just because we can finally afford to do so four years after 9-11. Polk County could be a target, so maybe some of those dollars make a certain amount of sense. But grain elevator explosions and tornadoes?

We need to get the resources to the people who need them most, and that's not being done. California spends $5 per capita on homeland security, while Wyoming spends $38 per capita on it, which leads me to believe that the next time we're attacked, we will be horrifyingly unprepared. Not us here in Iowa, with all of our things we don't need and will likely never use, but Americans who weren't taken care of because of political greed.

See, politicians like Latham are sent to Washington to take care of their constituents. So if he were to stand up and do the right thing by saying, "You know, I think it might be a little more advantageous and make a little more sense if we didn't spend $20,000 on new helmets and sniper-resistant body armor for the Pocahontas Police Department and instead put it toward another cop's salary who could be patrolling the New York subway system," he would be costing himself votes. And how does he ensure he gets sent back to Washington to cause even more damage? By making sure that Iowa - all of Iowa - gets a piece of that $32-billion pie called homeland security. It's bigger than any rain forest. It's a lottery created by the fear we have as a result of the evil we have done.

And because of it our kids are more stupid than ever. Millions of us are starving. The price of oil is out of control. The economy is in the toilet, joining the national debt, which grows by leaps and bounds because of a war we shouldn't be fighting in, not to mention, shouldn't have started. And we're destroying the earth. But, hey, we have shiny new orange traffic cones in Grimes - just in case Osama bin Laden attacks there.

Does this guy know us, or what? CV

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