We Are Not Safer

Of all the insane propaganda to come out of the Bush junta, perhaps the bit that I find most inexplicable is the notion that Bush is "keeping us safer." Forget the fact that he's gotten a complete pass for the fact that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon happened on his watch. He's done absolutely nothing since Sept. 11, 2001 to make America safer. In fact, from winning enemies in the Middle East to losing every real friend that America ever had, he's gone out of his way to do things that endanger us.

Now, from my local radio station, WTOP, comes the startling news that: the number of police officers guarding the nation's icons is now at its lowest level in more than a decade, WTOP has learned. In its most recent annual report, the National Park Service said it had 625 sworn officers nationwide. An internal staffing document obtained by WTOP shows as of August, the U.S. Park Police has 601 sworn officers, nationwide -- the lowest number since at least 1994.

The number will likely go down before it increases again, as U.S. Park Police canceled their most recent training class, which would have produced new recruits.

Budgetary reasons forced the cancellation, says David Barna, Chief of Public Affairs for the National Park Service.

Overtime needed for the Fourth of July, various demonstrations and the recent crime emergency prevented the Park Police from having enough money to run the class, Barna says.

If the Department of Homeland Security declares a "Code Red" terror alert, U.S. Park Police Chief Dwight Pettiford has options to bolster staffing, Barna says.

"Chief Pettiford has the authority to call in park rangers from across the country, to assist in the nation's capital. We did that for two years after Sept. 11," Barna says.

(Copyright 2006 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

That's right; the nation's monuments, some of the most symbolically attractive targets a terrorist could ever hope to hit, are now protected by fewer officers than they were in 1995 -- six years before 9/11. And the reason? Budgetary concerns. The Bush administration was more concerned with providing a tax cut for Paris Hilton and the president of Exxon Mobile than with protecting the Washington Monument, the Viet Nam War Memorial, or the National Archives, which houses the Constitution of the United States.

If Americans understood this, would the "Security Moms" still think that Bush was "keeping us safer"?