Some Still Don't Get It...Even Those who Defined "It"...
You know, there were those (I can't count myself as one of them) who believed that the creation of the Department of Homeland Security was little more than a cosmetic change to an otherwise incorrrigible American bureaucracy, made in response to, rather than in spite of, the events of September 11th, 2001.

Government monstrosities do not usually develop overnight. They typically take years to make their toxic presance known to the general public. DHS just might possibly be the first to break the land-speed record.

Part of the reason why has to do with how DHS was created. The Congress simply shuffled agencies around, without regard to the logic or reason behind many of the moves, ignored bureaucratic imperatives and snobberies that originally hindered the intelligence community on 9/11 and merely wished that the requisite co-operation (sans turf battles, political imperatives, etc) would just materialize.

Voila! You get a DHS in which FEMA can't get relief supplies into a section of the ocuntry devestated by hurricanes. Heck, you're lucky to STILL HAVE FEMA at all, because DHS was, you know, created in response to TERRORISM. Duh!

You get intelligence agencies that leak like sieves. Had they operated that way prior to 9/11, perhaps the word would have been out on the nightly news to "be on the lookout for these 19 middle-eastern men, believed armed with plane tickets". Worse, they spring so many holes because each agency is steeped in political infighting. Such holes open for a variety of petty reasons: someone lost a job, someone doesn't agree with his bosses assesment, someone seeks a job elsewhere, someone seeks to impress the media with his knowledge and power. It's petty.

You get a department that's probably so stretched that it's more than happy to turn over security operations in two major American ports to a company base din the UNITED ARAB EMIRATES.

You read that right; the UAE. You know, wedged between Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. You know, were there's like, a war on that's sorta-kinda related to the major religion practiced in the UAE? Like Islam, perhaps. You know, the creed that the 19 guys the NSA WASN'T wiretapping followed?

DHS has given it's "blessing" to this proposed takeover. Some in Congress are skeptical. The rest of the country is actually stunned (the part of the country able to understand that foolishness, that is. The part that votes democrat wouldn't know what we're talking about). The DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY which doesn't even bother to check every container entering an American port (it's too busy, you know), is absolutley CONVINCED that the important job of defending American ports can BE LEFT IN THE HANDS OF MUSLIM FOREIGNERS.

Paging President Bush: you'd better stop this shit. Like RIGHT NOW. Either that, or send Dick Cheney around to see Mr. Chertoff to discuss firearms safety. DHS is not doing what it's suppposed to be doing, and right now, it's looks to me like their even shirking whatever repsonsibility they have after that.

Economic considerations aside, DHS has signed off on this for it's own, selfish reasons. I can't prove it, but I damned well feel it. Relieved of the responsibility for operating security at two ports, DHS can concentrate on issues of more vital national interest: redesigning the departmental logo and blaming FEMA for Hurricane Katrina.