Citing a report released that week by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, the Times article noted, “The National Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.”
Duck, you Hoosiers!
The same story mentioned that the database is used by Homeland Security to help allocate “hundreds of millions of dollars in antiterrorism grants each year.” And it presented as further evidence that things are off-target major cuts announced this spring of 40 percent for New York City and Washington, D.C. At the same time, the agency increased the handout to smaller cities — including Louisville, which received $8.52 million, a 70 percent increase over its 2005 funding.
I guess we should be quivering on the Kentucky side of the Ohio as well.
In May, the federal government doled out a total of $1.7 billion to cities and states for homeland security expenditures. That, dare I say, is a lot of pork. It makes you wonder how Louisville got to the trough so successfully, and how Indiana achieved its top-of-the-list status. Is the Hoosier State, the self-proclaimed “Crossroads of America,” also some major intersection for Al Qaeda?
This funding business signals to me the complete mainstreaming of terrorism. When absurd locations such as a petting zoo, a flea market and the Amish Country Popcorn factory — all identified in the Times piece — make the list of potential targets, I think we can assume that the “war on terrorism” is rapidly gaining status as a self-sustaining, constantly growing bureaucratic entity. As dollars shrink for the social services, for education and for other previous priorities, the grant-writers will need to go where the money is. The fact that this nebulously defined war can go on forever, as long as it’s useful to the powers that be, should give us plenty of time to unearth some farcical tail-wagging-the-pig stories.
The Times’ industrious reporter, Eric Lipton, already found one, at the Amish Country Popcorn headquarters in remote Berne, Ind., approximately 35 miles south of Fort Wayne. Lipton contacted the head popper there and informed him that his five-employee company was on the terrorist target list with Homeland Security. The business’ owner was, not surprisingly, surprised. “We are nothing but a bunch of Amish buggies and tractors out here. No one would care,” he told the Times.
Then, in trying to come up with an explanation for being listed, he added this kernel of a question: “Maybe,” he posed, “because popcorn explodes?”
Is it treasonous to laugh at the war on terrorism? I think not, just as it’s not a betrayal of the U.S. when a news organization like the New York Times exposes surveillance of American citizens that our government’ agents are conducting under a shroud of secrecy, unless breaking the story harms our efforts to deter terrorism.
President Bush, Sen. Bunning and Rep. Peter King have claimed that the Times’ bank records story did do harm. But, I have to ask, isn’t it in their political interest to keep terrorism both in the mainstream and in the dark? We’re constantly reminded that we must be afraid, that we’re in a war and that we need to take sides. If we’re for fighting terror, the implication is that we shouldn’t question the tactics. Above all, we should trust our current leaders to keep us safe.
And now hunting season begins, when the destroyers of challengers to Republican control of the House and Senate will train their sights on the opposition in this fall’s election. Recall that they orchestrated votes on resolutions placing U.S. withdrawal from Iraq on a timetable — not so much because they believed in them, but because they could get Democrats on record in the Hobson’s choice of either being for a timetable (and thus soft on terror) or against one (and thus less able to criticize current tactics). The efforts to mute the Times and other media outlets for bringing some of the warts of the “war on terrorism” to the public’s attention may also be seen as attempts to cripple criticism.
Are you for them or against them? I’m for fighting terrorism, but I’m against doing it in the dark — or at a popcorn factory.
