Another embassy attacked

When is our government going to get it right? Another U.S. embassy has been attacked - this one in Athens, Greece (above, the embassy shortly after the rocket attack).

Okay, that may be a little unfair, actually. We should wait to see what all of the facts are before making snap judgments about embassy security, but even a passive follower of the news knows that there are U.S. embassies around the world that are quite vulnerable to any psycho who feels like blowing up something American (or Americans, for that matter).

However, this does raise some questions about what our government has been doing to beef up security at our embassies around the world.

Following the 1998 embassy attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, President Clinton was slammed for not doing enough to beef up security at our foreign embassies following a study that determined over $1 billion would be needed to either build new embassies where existing ones were completely inadequate and unprotectable, or beef up security at vulnerable embassies. I'd love to know what our government has done since then.

I've read that some embassies are better protected, but how much digging do you think it would take to discover that the Bush administration has skimped on spending the money to protect U.S. citizens who work at our embassies around the world? After all, we've got tax cuts we have to keep in place! (And even more, if Republicans had their way - deficits be damned. Bush has already stated that he had more tax cuts planned, but the Democratic takeover in Congress foiled those plans.)

It's yet another reason that I align myself with the liberal way of thinking with most economic matters. I'll elaborate.

No one likes to pay more taxes - most of all, me. But, there are some things that need to be taken care of in this country, and I realize that is why we pay taxes in the first place.

Homeland Security

The fact that we haven't been significantly attacked again is as much a product of luck as what the Bush administration has done, despite Bush and Cheney reminding us every chance they get that we haven't been attacked again on their watch. (But, we WERE attacked on their watch, weren't we?) Yes, billions have been spent in the wake of 9-11, but in the right areas? Investigative reporters still routinely pass through airport security with items that have been banned on flights, and some of these items are dangerous.

Yet, the TSA, an agency created in the wake of 9-11, sure is vigilant about limited the number of carry-ons and making travelers' lives miserable. Worse yet, many of these TSA employees aren't making squat per year, and any traveler knows the quality and demeanor of TSA employees performing inspections at airports.

I won't even get started on the scum that harassed and bullied Vandra at Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport, when we were on our way to Mexico for our wedding. It's a good thing we were on our way to get married, or I probably would have lost control with the incompetent rube who took great pleasure in making Vandra cry when she tried to carry on her wedding dress in addition to another carry-on bag.

And the TSA was awfully strict about allowing passengers carrying liquid onto flights because of a threat in Great Britain. Passengers weren't even allowed to carry on trial-sized bottles of mouthwash! Mouthwash! The worst part about that is some people were getting on with liquids, and others weren't.

And homeland security is just one example. Protecting our embassies is another, and there are dozens and dozens of other examples: We have millions of people in this country without health care, millions of people are in poverty, and we are fighting two wars, yet all the Republicans want is to cut, cut, cut taxes, while deficits are driven up and up, bankrupting our future.

President Bush could have gone to the American people and asked them to sacrifice virtually anything in the wake of 9-11, and he would have had a captive and favorable audience.

The bottom line is this - Americans have not been asked to sacrifice ANYTHING for the War on Terror. Not in taxes, not in laws (save personal privacy & personal freedom and the right for the gov't to do anything to you if they call you a terrorist), not in anything. The only people who are sacrificing anything in this War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan are the soldiers fighting and giving their lives in both of these countries - they are the real heroes.

It's amazing to look back on our nation's World War II years - the rationing, the sacrifice, the total mobilization of our economy and society. We will never see that again. In one of my classes last semester, WW II came up in one of my lectures, and I referred to the rationing, etc. that our government put in place during the war, and I got open-mouthed stares and gasps. Our society and young people today (save our soldiers and their families) know nothing of sacrifice, and I'm including myself and my generation.

Many (nay, most) Americans are the luckiest people on the planet.

Where was I again? Oh yea, the embassies. We need to beef them up, and our government needs to spend the money to do it.

First, the waste needs to be cleaned up in this government to save taxpayers billions. And there's loads and loads of waste in the tens of billions.

Next, this Congress needs to do what it needs to do in order to make us safer.

Get going, Congress. And the only way they will get going is if we hold our representatives in Congress accountable.