OUR PERILOUS SECURITY SITUATION

Although Obama has, more than once, said the war on terror is winding down and Al Qaeda has been decimated, we are all aware of the continued and growing existence of Al Qaeda and similar terrorist organizations on an international stage.  The alarm is being sounded over this weekend that an attack or attacks against American embassies in North Africa and the Middle East may take place; American travelers are being advised not to go to these places. 

Recent revelations about our national security leads even the novice to conclude that we have changed our focus from nipping terrorist acts in the bud while overseas, to being ready to deal with terrorist activity here on our home soil.  We're spending billions of dollars harvesting billions of bytes of data that we can hopefully cull through after an "event" and nail the perpetrators.  That fact and the fact that we were given direct warnings to watch out for terrorist activities on the part of the Boston Bombers, but we turned our noses up at the information, leads me to believe that we are not currently well-equipped to deal with the actual threat.  

Based on what has happened, I am not so sure that we know where all of the terrorist cells might be located here.  We do know that our porous borders allow potential terrorists to virtually come and go as they please.  It seems to me that an adequate intelligence program would not only know in advance who is crossing our borders and where they are going, but would also be actively capturing would-be terrorists before they even get to North American soil.  

How does it calm our fears to be able to say, "Well, if they do attack, we have so much data that we'll be able to figure out who did it, who their accomplices were and where to capture them?"   

That's MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.