Forget Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano’s bungled response to the would-be Detroit airline bomber. According to Slate’s Christopher Hitchens the bigger fiasco was the bureaucratic stasis substituted for swift action in the aborted bombing’s aftermath.
It was reported over the weekend that in the aftermath of the Detroit fiasco, no official decision was made about whether to raise the designated “threat level” from orange. Orange! Could this possibly be because it would be panicky and ridiculous to change it to red and really, really absurd to lower it to yellow? But isn’t it just as preposterous (and revealing), immediately after a known Muslim extremist has waltzed through every flimsy barrier, to leave it just where it was the day before?”
If this is true, the color-coded “threat level” system should be scrapped. It is doubtful anyone feels safe under any color. Per Hitchens, most Americans know that precious little can be done to prevent a murderer from succeeding if he intends to die in the process. While not an argument to do nothing, this realization should prompt DHS big wigs to do better PR than announce a new color scheme or disrobement policy. Americans deserve more from their government than prophylactic policies that seek to prevent the last terrorist’s security breach. As Hitchens details though, anything else would be unprecedented.
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