WMDebt

Emergency situations are exceptional, correct? Then how come have we been in one for sixteen years?

According to the President's WMD declaration the United States is (and has been for over a decade and a half) in an emergency situation regarding weapons of mass destruction. I hadn't noticed.

I picked up on the economic downturn in the early nineties. And again at the turn of the century. And recently it seems like unemployment is up slightly and there are a few problems here and there with housing prices- but somehow I the unending series of WMD attacks we have been suffering under.

Maybe it is because there have not been any.

Maybe it is because in my view, the threat of nuclear annihilation abated significantly around about 1992 when the Soviet Union's last legs collapsed and their nuclear arsenal went from rusty and neglected to rusty and nearly completely useless.

But apparently that is not the case.

Better minds than mine have written about the dangerous tendency of presidents to issue Executive Orders rather than following the Constitutional route of letting Congress write laws. I will leave that discussion to others. But it is worth examining this ridiculous Executive Notice on its face to see what it demonstrates about federal waste (observe that it is not an Executive Order, but a Notice extending the duration of the earlier Order).

Why, to begin with, is there such an Order and extension?

The first Order was signed by President Clinton, a copy of which can be found here. I will spare the reader from pushing through all five pages of this tripe. In a nutshell it states that certain governments encourage the proliferation of WMDs (I refuse to spell out acronyms that are well known, so if you don't know what "WMD" stands for don't expect to find an explanation between these parentheses) and need to be sanctioned. The Order lists a number of actions to be taken, principally by the secretaries of State and Commerce, to try and thwart such proliferation. Such actions include preventing aircraft from such countries from landing in the US, taking "the lead" in counter-proliferation treaty negotiation, and regulating export of certain items abroad.

Even with this specificity though, the Order seems purposeless. Why could Clinton have not told his Cabinet to simply start working against proliferation- why the need for this obtuse Order which really does not add anything to the effort?

Money.

If Clinton had just told his staff to go out and do the best darn job they can preventing the spread of WMDs, Commerce and State would have tapped some bureaucrats on the shoulder and increased reporting of WMD activity and enforcement of export regulations. Maybe a treaty or two would have been negotiated (by the by, is it not amusing that the Secretary of State was directed to take "the lead" in negotiating agreements on this issue? India and Pakistan have some pretty serious WMD issues- should the Secretary insist on being the lead negotiator on a treaty between those two countries? Do they need our expertise? Must we be not just involved in every issue, but the lead on every issue? Don't the French, British, Russians, and other countries with experience in diplomacy find this arrogance offensive?). The bottom line is we did not need an executive order to do any of the things this Order mandates. So why is it there?

What this Executive Order does is provide cover. It formalizes an industry. With Executive Order 12938 the effort to "fight WMDs" (an ironic phrase, yes) is institutionalized. It is no longer an order from a manager to his staff- it becomes a national mission. Better yet, by characterizing it as an emergency, it becomes an urgent, unquestionable priority.

And it has. I am too lazy to do the homework, but WMD funding has increased dramatically since the issuance of this Executive Order. It has given formal approval to every Department to petition Congress for WMD funding. And how can Congress refuse, in the face of a presidential emergency?

Of course, after fifteen plus years- it becomes a joke. But not until at least a few people have made a buck or two.

Here's a nice example which sums the situation up.

This article outlines a DOD (another obvious acronym) objection to an Obama proposal to take about $1 billion from DOD WMD funds and direct them to a vaccine development fund. It is noted that such a cut would take DOD WMD measures, specifically chemical-biological counter-measures, "back to 1996 levels."

Ok, here we go.....

1- the levels were inflated after Clinton's ridiculous Executive Order created a never-ending emergency (I will explain shortly why the Order was ridiculous).

2- while I would like to give the current Administration credit for cutting this nonsense program, they are only shifting the money to another unconstitutional, wasteful scheme. (Unlike my thoughts on why WMD is overrated as a threat, which I will address shortly, I refuse to explain why the pandemic flu paranoia-hysteria-scam is a joke. Just look at all the hype and decide if it is merited or not- I don't even think the drug company CEOs can keep a straight face when getting their grant money anymore- they probably insist on direct deposit to avoid laughing aloud when handed their checks).

WMD is an exaggerated threat. Aside from a few incidents, easily dismissed, there has never been a serious use of WMD tactics by terrorists. At least not any attack which threatened the existence of a country. And as for state on state WMD violence, there have been a handful of chemical and biological attacks, a fair amount of which were American. And only one nuclear attack (which we carried out: USA! USA! USA!).

Heck, it almost makes you wonder if maybe our resources spent on WMD countermeasures might have been better used to investigate- I don't know- maybe visitors from high risk categories taking flying lessons?

As it happens so many times with unchecked bureaucracies, the ice cream cone becomes self-licking.

Ask yourself: when has there ever been an anthrax attack directed against the United States.

Shortly after 9/11, right?

Well, it turns out the perpetrator of that attack was- wait for it- a WMD specialist employed by the US government! No kidding! Just as volunteer firemen sometimes have a bad apple who gets bored and runs around setting buildings on fire, so did a US Army biological weapons specialist. Only, instead of pouring kerosene on abandoned townhouses and torching them, Dr. Bruce Ivins got off stalking Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority chapters (apparently he was shunned by a sister years ago) and then mailing anthrax laden letters to the public. Truth about USG waste is stranger than fiction.

I agree there is value in studying the problem, preparing some basic countermeasures, and possibly covertly disrupting WMD acquisition efforts by rogue states and actors. But starting a WMD crusade is valueless. It is destined to be a waste of money and get us into a situation we do not want to be in. Like Iraq.

Or less painful, but equally foolish, our current predicament of trying to twist Iran's arm to prevent them from acquiring nuclear arms. Who cares if Iran gets nuclear arms? If I were Iraqi I might be worried. But if I'm American (or Israeli or Russian, for that matter) I'm sitting on my own stockpile of nukes. The Iranians would have to be completely irrational to think that detonating a nuclear weapon in the US (or Israel or Russia) would be a sound strategic decision. Tehran would be dust by sunset.

Same thing goes for that nut case Kim Jong, and his creepy kid who is set to take over. Nuke America and it is no more 100 year old cognac and sushi prepared by kidnapped Japanese chefs for you Dear Leader.

But they might pass a nuke (or disease or chemical agent) to an agent to attack with surreptitiously- right?

Now here is a place where I conceeed we should maintain WMD vigilance. We should have excellent border control and customs practices to prevent WMDs (and illegals and narcotics and pirated DVDs and fake iPhones) from entering the US. So I admit- in some sense- some WMD funding is needed.

But our existing law enforcement system is adequate. Just increase the funding (a reasonable amount) and let them adjust. There was no need to give every Department and ever little jurisdiction in America a federally funded WMD fiefdom (do the homework yourself- they have them- I'm too lazy to find the links). Just plus up FBI's WMD funding, throw some cash at Customs and the various border control agencies and Bob's your uncle- WMD issues are addressed as well as they can be.

This cuts to the root of the problem, of which there are actually two. Once again I will present a list:

1- some problems government cannot fix.

There is no way the federal government can completely negate a criminal or security threat, and there is a certain point at which the cost of mitigating a threat becomes too high. This is something which need to be acknowledged when addressing concerns like WMD, airline safety, forest fire protection, even counterfeiting- we cannot win them all. People have to accept that some risks cannot be negated.

2- action is not always the best course.

We did not need this stupid Executive Order. We already had a national investigative body (FBI) and customs control offices. We did not need the Orwellian named and acting Department of Homeland Security either, which set civil liberties back so far you would think the Constitution had been lost in a WMD attack.

It reminds me a bit of the silly Trafficking in Persons problem which is over exaggerated and has become an industry unto its own. We already had on the books kidnapping, assault, and a host of other crimes at all levels of government- why did the federal government have to invent new laws and new bureaucracies- and did they improve the situation? (TIP is worth a separate posting- but to answer my own question- no they did not).

And lastly- is WMD really a national emergency? Katrina was an emergency. 9/11 was an emergency. Mount Saint Helens was an emergency. This is just a situation, one of many, which the federal government needs to sensibly, economically address. No new bureaus or offices or laws- just use the bazillions of laws and employees and agencies we have now to deal with it the best we can.

Put simply: are we better off now with this Executive Order than we would have been had it never been issued? Some people would say you cannot put a price on security. I would argue you certainly can. I am just too lazy to read through sixteen years of the federal budget finding out how many billions were spent creating an industry which did not need to be invented.