-By John Armor
Today comes news that the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, is replacing Roger Mackin with Phillip Mudd. Who? What? So?
Roger Mackin was the undersecretary for intelligence and analysis. He was responsible for the memo issued just before the 750+ Tea Parties attended by 1 million+ Americans. You know that memo, which said people who oppose abortion, attend church, and own legal guns are potential terrorists. And don’t forget that it also said veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan are risky, too.
Before talking about that appalling memo, let’s back up a minute. What is the purpose of the Homeland Security Department? It is to protect Americans in their homes, businesses, schools and shopping malls from being slaughtered by (mostly) Islamofascists who have announced their intentions to keep killing Americans, as they did on 9/11.
It is NOT the purpose of Homeland Security to keep President Barack Obama safe in the political polls by creating factually baseless attacks against people who are perceived as his political opponents. Anyone who thinks in terms of protecting the President’s political stances, rather than protecting the lives of ordinary Americans should NOT be drawing a paycheck from Homeland Security. So, good riddance to Mr, Mackin.
And welcome to Mr. Mudd, who has a background with the FBI and the CIA, and who might have a better idea of what his mission is. But that brings us to the question of Secretary Napolitano. Unless she was totally incompetent, she had to have seen this memo before it was released, and to have played a role in choosing its release date just before the Tea Parties took place across the nation.
If she thinks that the proper role of Homeland Security is to protect the political butt of the President, rather than to protect the lives of American citizens, she should be dumped as fast as the Secretary of that Department, as Mr. Mackin was dumped as Undersecretary. Is there other evidence that the Homeland Security Secretary has no clue what her job entails? Evidence that she has in other ways acted to endanger Americans, rather than protect them?
Prior to becoming Secretary, Napolitano was Governor of Arizona, a key target for the invasion of illegal aliens from Mexico into the United States. That state passed a series of laws to make it harder for illegals to work in that state, laws which proved very effective and caused many aliens to “self-deport.” But those laws were passed over the determined opposition of Napolitano.
Just recently, Napolitano stated in public that the 9/11 attackers came across the Canadian border. That is dead wrong. All 19 of those murderous hijackers entered the US via our own airports and under lax regulations on tourists and students.
This week, Napolitano announced that she wants revisions and relaxation of the Real ID Act passed by Congress years ago, and now going into effect. That law was occasioned by some states having incredibly lax regulations so that aliens, and terrorists, could easily get US drivers licenses. My state, North Carolina, was a particularly bad example. As I understand, almost half of the 9/11 criminals got their first licenses in North Carolina, which they could then exchange for licenses from any other state.
I was invited to speak to a national meeting of state legislators six years ago on the subject of the security of drivers licenses. I told them that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link; either the states would have to adopt proof of who you are and whether you are a US citizen as a minimum standard for licenses, or Congress would force the issue. Congress did force it, rejecting state drivers licenses as valid ID from those states which still had sloppy standards.
Is Secretary Napolitano too stupid to recognize that obvious point? Or, does she think that following the winds of politics is her higher duty?
Either way, Napolitano needs to be fired as quickly as humanly possible. The longer she stays, the more likely it is that thousands, tens of thousands, or millions of Americans (if the terrorists smuggle in a nuclear weapon made in North Korea, Iran, or Pakistan) will be killed. In such case, the murderers who push the button will not be any of those who were slandered in her biased threat memo.
____________
John Armor is a graduate of Yale, and Maryland Law School, and has 33 years practice at law in the US Supreme Court. Mr. Armor has authored seven books and over 750 articles. Armor happily lives on a mountaintop in the Blue Ridge. He can be reached at: John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.