Just curious. Large parts of downtown Washington DC was pretty much immobilized by one guy in a tractor who parked in a pond and claimed to have explosives (he didn't). If we can't deal with something like that, how on earth can Tom Ridge and his department of Homeland Security deal with a real attack? If something real happens, does anyone think this new boondogle of a government agency will help at all?
maybe, maybe not...who knows... i did find it funny <although it is not> that a man in a pickup with a trailor drove in to the pond and then held himself in a tractor from 3 days before finally giving himself up.
While I am not sold on this new department, I think they handled this as well as possible. I mean, the guy was not going anywhere and to move in would just provoke him. In the end, it at least saved his life. They should have had a sniper take him long ago, but what would you be saying about that? The department killed an unarmed man who just had a complaint against policy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they should've killed him. I'm saying that a guy who didn't really do anything apart from drive a tractor into the pond on the Mall held the city paralyzed for a couple of days. You wouldn't have believed what a mess traffic was. If something real happened, I don't see how people could get out of the way of danger. That's what I meant.
Your perspective is needed. It is not like the DC snipers stopped traffic or the fact that DC traffic sucks in general. The Homeland Security dept is for show. I bet many agencies hate having a new boss. I think the communication channels just got more confussed rather than better. When (or if) anything happens again in the USA, this will be seen as the joke it is. More red tape.
I have perspective. I live here. I drive through DC every day, to and from work. Yeah, traffic sucks here all the time. But the Office of Homeland Security is a total waste of time. It's more government waste, brought to you by a "budget conscious" Republican adminstration. Then again, it was a stupid idea for Clinton to close Pennsylvania Avenue a few years back. They need to reopen that. Closing the street won't stop terrorists who want to take out the White House if they really want to.