From the VOMITORIUM
Okay this one is for my friend and colleague, Quin at Quintessential Havoc (please venture to my blogroll and visit his blog)…we have been bitching about the massive bureaucracies that we in the West seem to think that we cannot live without ….well we in the US seem to do it better than most and this post is about our latest big deal…..
The BBC is reporting on a WaPo investigative report on the intel industry in our government……
Secret US intelligence gathering has grown so much since 9/11 no-one knows its exact cost, nor how many people are involved, the Washington Post reports.
It says nearly 2,000 private companies and 1,270 government agencies are involved in counter-terror work at 10,000 locations across the country.
According to the Washington Post:
- Some 854,000 US citizens have the highest level of security clearance
- A fifth of the US government’s anti-terror organisations have been created since the September 2001 attacks
- More than 250 security bodies have been created or restructured since 9/11
- More than 30 complexes with 17m sq ft of space (1.6 sq m) have been built for top-secret intelligence work in the Washington area since the attacks
- Various agencies publish so many reports these are often ignored by officials
A massive bureaucracy created out of fear and now it is a beast with NO control.
Have you heard of such moronic BS? This is just scary……that a million people have clearance to the intel and how it works…it is just unbelievable…at least to me….this is what Quin and I have been telling people…….the government creates a massive bureaucracy with YOUR money and it is about as worthless as tits on a boar….I just wish we could get more people to PAY ATTENTION!
Do you feel safer? Of course you do NOT!
A good post and a very good question!
Of course people don’t feel safer – more significantly people feel LESS safe since a climate of fear is essential to these bureaucratic jerks in order to justify their existence, which is what people like OBL depend upon. I used to bitch about the US and Noraid, which (whatever US citizens thought they were doing) basically funded the IRA and its splinter groups in Northern Ireland.
9/11 was indeed spectacular and I don’t mean to make less of it, but it’s NOTHING when compared to daily (sometimes hourly) attacks, bomb blasts, nail bomb explosions in crowded streets and machine gunnings all across Northern Ireland and the UK mainland year after goddamned year. In those days, Brits mostly simply shrugged their shoulders, snarled something under their breath about “bloody Yanks” or cutting bloody Ireland off and pushing it further out to sea because we didn’t want the goddamned place anyway – and got on with our lives! I say this to point out that the climate of fear that such an approach as you are now involved in creates is almost always FAR worse than the threat itself – in fact that’s one of the main principles of terror – creating havoc and fear by doing relatively little.
When you look at what OBL has done to America (and please don’t take this statement the wrong way) a few hundred or even a few thousand dead in one or two spectacular incidents is absolute PEANUTS when compared to the draconian security measures, intrusion into everyone’s lives, the VAST and MASSIVELY expensive security bureaucracy and the climate of fear you now all put up with on a daily basis and that has so dramatically changed your way of life.
THAT is the OBL effect and it has been 1000% successful! You’ve been had guys and you’ve all fallen for it – and so have the Brits this time around following 7/7, though to at least a somewhat lesser extent.
👿
Thanx for the props and I understand what you are saying (hopefully others have enough brains to see it also)…….a massive bureaucracy does NOT make one safer…the stats in the story are amazing and almost unbelievable ….I do say ALMOST…knowing the mentality in Washington…it is NOT a surprise……
Exactly so… sad, but true.
God I hate being right! Especially in this case!
Thanx for the heads up by the way – I meant to say before, but I got a bit carried away… 🙂
You are more than welcome…..anytime I can help. I am working on a piece about Cameron and his “Big Society”……..your input will be greatly appreciated….such be done in a couple of days.