Over the past several months, I feel like I've been sitting by, idly, while watching our country go to pot. I've often wondered what I could do, as an individual, to make my voice heard and while there is a chance that I may be the only follower of my own blog, I would like to use this blog as a source to air a few feelings now and then.
Before I begin my political rant, I must claim and disclaim a few things so that all readers know where I stand. Please feel free to comment whether you agree or disagree. I'm pretty open to other ideas and points of view. First of all, I do not support President Obama. I'm of the belief that his ideas and his politics are not a benefit to this country. I often feel like he wants more to be a celebrity than the president. With as many photo shoots, promos and interviews that he's done since his inauguration, I find it hard to believe that the serious issues that our country is being crippled by are at the top of his priority list. Oh, and P.S., Just because I don't agree with President Obama does not make me a racist! I am a patriot of this country tried and true. I believe in liberty, freedom and democracy and every single man and woman who has served this country protecting those gifts.
Working in Homeland Security, I've become intimately familiar with the world of terrorism. I had the absolutely unbelievable opportunity to travel to Israel in 2008 on a Homeland Security Mission and it opened my eyes to what Homeland Security should be. The Israelis are an unbelievably resilient people. I guess when you have to fight for everything you have, including your mere existence, you evolve into a society that possesses all of the necesseties for sustainment. We had the opporunity to meet with an extremely interesting man who served the United States in the Special Forces and then gained Israeli citizenship and served in the IDF Special Forces and when we met, he was part of an elite counter terrorism unit. He is definitely a person who's brain I would love to pick. Anyway, he summed it up best when I asked him what we could do here in the states to better train and prepare our citizens to recognize precursors to terrorism so that instead of always reacting, we could instead prevent horrible things like 9/11 from happening. "Unfortunately, he said, the Israeli's have learned from experience. They know what to look for, because they have seen it before." I don't want us to have to meet the same fate. Throughout my stay there, several things stood out to me that definitely benefit their fight against terrorism.
1. They are NOT politically correct and they don't care if they hurt your feelings when it comes to protecting their country. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times... our political corectness is going to be our downfall. We have so many people scared to death to enforce anything because they are afraid of the repercussions. We got to watch a demonstration of Krav Maga, which is an Israeli martial art, and one of the instructors was a guy named Sascha. He couldn't have been but a little over five feet tall and he was the cutest thing. Anyway, he was showing us how they take down suspected terrorists. I was amazed (and a little turned on, I'll admit) to watch Sascha take down another instructor that was twice his size and weight in a matter of seconds. Before he did it he was explaining that this is what they do if they see suspicious people. Me, being the dumb American molded by my political correctness, asked... "Well, what if it ends up that they're not a terrorist?" He shrugged his shoulders and said he guessed he would just apologize!!!! If something like that happened here, it would be all over the news and You Tube and there would be investigations and mandatroy leave and law suits and on and on. It's a shame that this is what our world has come to. I heard a news story a while back where a Muslim Imam (holy leader) was on a plane and during the flight he put down his prayer mat in the aisle and starting praying. I don't know if you have ever heard Muslims pray, but it's out loud and not understandable. So, NATURALLY, people on the plane are extremely uncomfortable and a flight attendant asked the man to stop. He sues the airline for interfering with his prayer. RIDICULOUS! I'm sure it was done on purpose. These are the exact things that terrorists see and will use to exploit us in the future! They know that the majority of law enforcement personnel will not single out men of middle eastern origin because of all the backlash. This country has come TOO far to be paralyzed by this sort of idiocracy!
2. Military service in Israel is mandatory and there is only one branch. Every Israeli citizen must serve in the IDF. Women have to serve at least 2 years and men, 3. I'm sure there are many out there who disagree with that idea, but I'll tell you why I think it would be great. First and foremost, when you serve your country in a military capacity, it instills a patriotism almost instantaneoulsy. We would probably be a lot better off if every man and woman in this country loved it as much as most of our service men and women. Secondly, every person is being trained on the same material, by the same people. What I said earlier about there only being one branch is that the branch is the IDF and under that umbrella, they have a navy, airforce, army and marines, but they all play together because they are all one in the same. They're all on the same team. With that being said, the navy is trained by the same people that the airforce is trained by and so on. With this structure, there is not alot of room for miscommunications and it facilitates cooperation between all military and law enforcement entities because these young people, who later become Mossad and ShenBet and others have already been working together. It's also important to note that with every Israeli having been trained in the IDF, they know enough about terrorism, to be able to prevent it. I'm much more likey to put out a fire, if I've used a fire extinguisher before or something like that.
3. They are not concerned with how much time and money it takes to be secure. Our Texas/Mexico border operations look like a free for all compared to the border crossing we visited on the West Bank. Our Texas/Mexico border operations pretty much are a free for all!!! And by saying that I mean absolutely no disrespect to all the folks who work hard everyday down there. I do have little respect though for all of the people sitting in Washington making all the decisions for people they've never met and places they've never been, nor cared to visit. That's like me trying to tell somebody how to build a rocket. I, like they, should probably leave it to the people who know what they are doing. (Different topic for a different day) Anyway, I can't go into alot of detail about the West Bank border crossing because it's classified, but just know that it would be dang near impossible to walk across that border with anyhting, hidden anywhere. Another thing I thought was interesting is that for every ship and plane coming into the country, the manifests are required ahead of time and background checks are run on pretty much everybody, maybe with the exception of Ben Netanyahu. One of the guys that was on our trip with us is of Irish heritage. He's never been to Ireland in his life. He's a New York cop on the counter terrorism unit and they still questioned him because of the IRA. They're pretty serious, but when you're tired of being burned, I guess it doesn't matter.
One of the biggest things that hit me in the face was that Israeli's don't care as much about responding to a terrorist attack as they do about preventing them. Another thing that I'm intimately familiar with is Homeland Security Grants. You hear it all the time on the news about the billions that are being spent on Homeland Security. I can tell you that the majority of those funds are spent on respone equipment. It's almost as if we've defeated ourselves before the fight. Why aren't we spending all that money on preventative measures other than a dang border fence???? I don't understand it. I understand that Israel is about the size of New Jersey and all of the complexities that would occur in trying to secure the U.S. like that; however, we could at least learn a few lessons from them. Just because we are the big brother doesn't mean that our little brother can't teach us anything.
Oh... when I conquer the world!!!!
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