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I have just submitted the following LTTE to my local newspaper. It should go over well in my "red" county, but I feel it will be published without problem......
"Gone practically unnoticed and definitely under reported is a story about a committee vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
An amendment submitted in the House Homeland Security Committee by Rep. Edward Markey(D-MA) to require overseas scanning, under U.S. government supervision, of all U.S. bound cargo and also requiring tamper proof seals on the cargo, was defeated 18-16 on a mostly party-line vote.
According to Markey, intelligence since 9/11, has long told us that the holy grail of terrorism is to bring a nuclear device to the U.S. shore. And experts from all walks of American think tanks assure us that when less than 5% of all marine containers are being inspected before going inland, as they still are nearly five years after 9/11. these vessels would be the best and easiest way of accomplishing it.
Republicans on the committee were under fire from a coalition of business interests such as The Business Leaders Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to defeat the amendment. The Business Leaders Association represents business outlets such as Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy. All are companies who really don't want the cost or hassles of any security measures that will raise their costs, or inconvenience them in any way.
And the irony of ironies is that Rep. Peter King(R-NY), the congressman who is literally screaming because cuts in the homeland security budget, which he voted for after it was requested by the Bush Administration, were passed along to New York City, is the Republican Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee!
As a Vice-President and a National Security Advisor turned Secretary of State once made a point of telling us...."we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" in Dallas or anywhere else.
But these companies, and several others, keep reminding Republicans, some at GOP fundraisers that they hold themselves, that profits suffer when some areas of Homeland Security are covered. And as long as our elected representatives in Congress continue to put those needs above Homeland Security, all that the average American citizen can do is hold our collective breath, and hope that some terrorist isn't smarter than the head of some special interest group with the ear of Peter King and his cohorts."
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