"Civilian resources limped managing Katrina. Let's make the military responsible for disasters." So anytime anyone says the magic word "disaster," we will suddenly see lots of folks from someplace else, carrying machine guns. With enough disasters, they'll just forget to go home, and everybody will get trained to follow orders or get shot.
Crisis tends to make people stupid. We should try not to have one very often, even if lots of people are dying, even if bad people are on the loose, even if there's lots of noise and things flying around.
Had I had the privilege of writing President Bush's speech the day after 9/11, I would have said, "A terrible crime has been committed. We must increase the budget for local law enforcement and disaster relief at every level, and train personnel to watch out for this kind of crime. Those who planned this crime have reason to fear the penalty of the law. No one else has anything to fear from the United States of America." Somebody might someday do an estimate on the number of lives that statement would have saved.
Posted by shea0017 at September 26, 2005 11:22 AM