HispanicVista Columnists

Although this is primarily directed to the United States readers, there are some points that México would do well to take note of. Although most Mexicans do not believe that México is at risk for a possible attack, I (as I have said before) beg to differ. And being a big trader with the US doesn't help either.

But our subject today is US national safety in the light of what is going on in the world today. At this writing, the latest attacks were in London, England.

What is striking is the response of both the British people and their security agencies. From the people comes defiance and that old "stiff upper lip" syndrome that the British are famous for. But we should remember that those people have a lot of history in this sort of thing. Remember the "blitz" in WW II? Remember the long IRA terror attacks? The IRA has finally laid down their arms, but Britain learned a lot on how to survive.

The speed of their security forces in locating and arresting so many involved is indeed commendable. They moved very fast and are not pulling any punches in going about their work. There are good lessons here. One of the reasons for this speed is an effective communications system. One of the problems in 9/11 was that the communications systems did not work. They didn't work in the 1993 WTC attack either . . . and the radio system in New York still has not been upgraded.

The British mistake was allowing so many extremist mullahs to preach their poison to impressionable people. But of course, religious freedom was a serious issue. But to preach insurrection and murder is not protected by freedom of worship anywhere. It is noteworthy that a few mullahs doing this in the US have been put away. One for helping to plot the first World Trade Center bombing, another for organizing "irregular" fighters to go to Afghanistan to kill American soldiers fighting there. A gold star for the US here.

The overall security system in the US is now under the new Department of Homeland Security. After 9/11, this new agency was created to improve intelligence, enforcement and coordination of the various agencies that were already in place, but were doing a poor job. Like the FBI, CIA, NSA and so on, who never were good at talking to each other. The answer was to install another layer of bureaucracy over a broken system rather than fix the system. This is the old Mexican trick! Rather than fix broken or corrupt police agencies here, we keep forming more agencies. As a result, we have probably more types of police than any other country and they don't talk to each other either. In fact, sometimes they shoot at each other. Recent reports tell us that although shooting at each other does not seem to be in the cards at the DHS, cooperation and effectiveness does not seem to be in the cards either.

The first and foremost thing to fight a war is intelligence. But one analyst observed, "More bureaucracy is never the answer to bad bureaucracy". On top of this, the administration rewarded the "retired" and inept former head of the CIA with the Medal of Freedom . . . a disgrace to that award. The FBI still does not posses a modern computer system to do analysis with. And all intelligence agencies are extremely short of anyone speaking Arabic! It's always nice to understand the language of your enemies in this game.

While the most effective security measures for airline safety (reinforced cockpit doors, armed pilots and better passenger/luggage screening) are in force, reports abound as to the poor quality of ground security personnel. But let's look at travel security in another light. There are 16 times the people using trains and rapid transit than using the airlines in the US. Ground transportation gets only $0.09 per passenger compared to $9.00 per passenger for security. Both London and Spain saw ground attacks. One security expert commented that the "searching one of every 5 people with bags" going on in New York subways only requires a bomber who can count to get through.

They are afraid to do "profiling" because it might "offend some people". In the US, the thinking is on what has happened, not on what might happen. And rest assured the next attack would be at the weakest spot, not necessarily where the last one was.

Another thing about screening. In the airport, they scan your passports and this is entered on a master computer. Come across on a bus or drive across the border and they only look at it. But I guess terrorists only supposed to come in on airplanes. Don't even mention the bungled up "no fly list". Ask Senator Edward Kennedy about that. And they keep coming up with erroneous names on the list. México, France and Britain have been embarrassed more than once over bad information on the "no fly list".

In the meantime, the English have made very good use of one thing. Surveillance cameras. The cameras have resulted in many of the arrests that have been made there. Yet civil rights groups in the US are opposing them. In my opinion, it you are openly walking down a public way you are not in a "private" situation so there is not anything to protect. In addition, the use of surveillance cameras in Europe has drastically cut down street crime. México is installing these here now in high crime areas.

But there is one thing that big bureaucracies are good at . . . to suck up money. As it is, 10% of all government expenditure is for security related expenses. Do you feel safer now?
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Richard N. Baldwin T., a HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/) contributing columnist, lives in Tlalnepantla, Edo de México. E-mail at: R1041643422@aol.com