If Its Broken, Why Haven't They Fixed It?

(Updated in light of a new report showing that the government isn't taking real steps to make us safer and the recent harassment of reporters, children, grandmothers and others at the Minnesota convention).


Fort Knox is robbed in an unusual way. Burglars break in through an air conditioning vent and shine a laser at the video cameras to "blind" them. Billions are stolen.

The head of Fort Knox (let's call him the "Chief") announces that no one could have foreseen this type of burglary.

The commission investigating the robbery -- stacked with the Chief's business partners and friends -- finds that the break-in was unexpected. The commission makes numerous suggestions on how to thwart similar burglaries by installing motion detectors in the air conditioning vents and main vault.

Independent researchers, however, discover that there have been many previous break-ins at repositories of valuable items where the burglars crawled in through the air conditioning vents and shined lasers at video cameras.

They also discover that the Fort's security system would normally have caught the burglars in the act and alerted the military in time to stop the burglary, but the system was undergoing a series of "safety tests" that night -- including some that were similar to what actually occurred -- and so the military assumed that the alarms were part of the test.

There had been safety tests before, but never so many at the same time. The Chief personally scheduled multiple, overlapping tests for the night of the robbery, and then oversaw the operation of the tests and the Fort's reaction to those tests.

Years pass, but the Chief does not follow the commission's recommendations. He fails to install any motion detectors.

That's circumstantial evidence that the Chief was in on the heist. Why? Because if the robbery really had not been foreseeable and if he was innocent, he would have a very strong incentive to install motion detectors to prevent further robberies at the Fort. His personal reputation, the government's reputation, and its gold reserves would all depend on it. You can bet that he'd shore up the Fort's defenses.

Perks

Let's take it a step further: the Chief's personal bank account has suddenly gotten alot bigger after the heist. That helps to prove he was in on it, right? But it also shows that one of the reasons the Chief is leaving the Fort's defenses in a compromised state now is so that additional heists can occur, and he'll get more loot.

9/11

Similarly, the 9-11 Commission -- stacked with cronies of the Bush administration (like executive director Philip Zelikow (an administration insider whose area of expertise is the creation and maintenance of "public myths" thought to be true, even if not actually true, who controlled what the Commission did and did not analyze, then limited the scope of the Commission's inquiry so that the overwhelming majority of questions about 9/11 remained unasked - see this article and this article) found that the attacks were unexpected, despite very strong evidence that they were not, and despite the fact that the government scheduled numerous, overlapping war games for 9/11 -- some involving a plane flying into a building and others involving hijackings.

And even though Bin Laden allegedly masterminded 9/11, the CIA commander in charge of the capture that the U.S. let Bin Laden escape from Afghanistan. If one particular criminal had done the first crime and was known to want to do additional crimes, wouldn't failing to capture him when they had the chance indicate something wasn't right?

And U.S. and allied intelligence services had penetrated the very "highest levels" of Al Qaeda and knew the attacks were coming, and yet failed to stop them.

And while the 9-11 Commission made numerous recommendations on how to prevent future terrorist attacks -- many of them simple and inexpensive to implement -- the Bush administration has has failed to do so (and see this and this). Moreover, he and his allies are actively blocking efforts to do so.

Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security, instead of protecting vulnerable targets, has instead randomly made up lists which include kangaroo centers, petting zoos and ice cream parlors as high-priority terrorist threats. And the administration is refusing to fill important positions at DHS so that our security can be protected.

The government is also harassing reporters, children and other innocent American citizens instead of real terrorists (see this, this and this).

Just like with the Chief, the current administration's failure to make the recommended and preventative changes -- many of them cheap fixes -- despite billions being spent on supposed "homeland security", is strong evidence that the administration was in on it. Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security is now claiming that many more terrorist attacks are "inevitable". But they wouldn't be inevitable if the government had beefed up security and kept its eye on the ball, right? I mean, if you were told that it was "inevitable" that a bunch of robbers would come break into your bank (or your house), wouldn't you move heaven and earth to strengthen your ability to defend your home?

The administration has received so many perks from 9/11: justification for wars in Afghanistan (where a huge oil pipeline benefiting American companies was being held up by the Taliban) and Iraq (one of the world's largest oil producers), permanent military bases in the Middle East, and consolidation of power at home.

And by failing to implement the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission, the administration keeps open the possibility that another "terrorist" attack will occur which will whip the now-dissenting American public into line, justify the invasion of Iran, and allow for the suspension of our remaining constitutional rights.

The bottom line is that the administration's, like the Chief's, inaction to fix the alleged holes in security which allowed supposedly unforeseeable crimes to occur shows that they are guilty of the crimes, and hope to benefit from additional crimes in the future.

And if foreign terrorists really had carried out 9/11, why is the government using all of its resources spying on innocent people who obviously have never met a terrorist in their life? Indeed, even insider and war hawk Zbigniew Brzezinski and other leading experts are now admitting that the war on terror is a racket. Moreover, a top adviser to the U.S. military has confirmed that the war on terror is a hoax because there is no battlefield solution to terrorism. And the neocons themselves admit that the war on terror is a hoax.