"... after nine years — and regular praise from officials at the Department of Homeland Security — the 77 fusion centers have become pools of ineptitude, waste and civil liberties intrusions, according to a scathing 141-page report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on investigations." Washpost
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A lot of "loopy" things were done during the hysteria that folllowed that awful day. Vast amounts of money were "borrowed" by the government. That money was spread far and wide throughout the government and among contracting companies that serve the government. Some of it came my way. I was pleased to accept it. It was not hard to see then, and easier now that the institutional "empire building" and open handed distribution of "the spoils" of counter-terrorism were excessive and are excessive yet. The same thing applies to the national defense establishment in general.
We need to "build down" the whole national security apparatus. There are too many groups doing overlapping tasks. There are too many "fusion centers," CT centers, joint task forces on "this or that." There are too many contracter employees in the Pentagon doing the work that active duty military people should be doing for themselves rather than spending their time "politicking" for promotion. CIA? The "game" has not been different there.
Once again, we should have just one army. The USMC has grown and "morphed" into a second army for the United States. Once upon a time, the marines were a small service dedicated to the prosecution of the land aspects of a naval campaign, as well as various small "jobs" like; running naval prisons, guarding admirals from sailors and serving as legation guards in places far away. In WW2 the Army and USMC were about equally successful in conducting bloody, bloody amphibious landings. Normandy and Iwo Jima would be examples.
Today the USMC is larger that the British and Canadian armies combined. The USMC is now a large land mass operations service. Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrated that. We should combine he two services into one. The resultant savings in the now duplicated education, training and logistics establishments would be large. Such a merger would also put an end to the endless bickering and hostility that mark today's situation.
Contrary to popular belief smaller is often better, better in the retention of the best and discarding of the worst. Let's get smaller. pl
