Land of Oz

Crime & crimes

Over the last couple of years, I've had to do a lot of paper-pushing through various government agencies. I also crossed the Canadian border a lot going to and from Toronto to visit my girlfriend. Some of the paperwork has taken nearly a year to crawl through various government agencies and I've spent up to four hours waiting to cross the border.

In dealing with those agencies, I've often gotten different reasons for different reactions to the same events. One person will say, "sure you can do that" and then another person listening in will say, "of course, you can't do that" and on and on. I spent 22 years working in the military and it was the same way. However, back then, you had to at least be creative in your excuses for not knowing what was going on. Since 2001, however all you have to say is, "it's because of 9/11."

Yes. 9/11 was a tragedy. However, it has its limits. The direct cost of the 9/11 attack was about 3000 people dead. That same year saw 16,000 people murdered, 91,000 raped, and 910,000 aggravated assaults - and this only in the US. And those numbers are pretty close for the following three years as well. After some four year old information has been found, Washington D.C. is again drowning in police presence. OK, the Pentagon terrorist bombing cost around 200 lives -- last year Washington D.C. had 262 murders, Detroit 402, and New Orleans 258. Those numbers don't change much year after year after year.

After hearing "it's because of 9/11" as an excuse for every type of delay and inconvenience known to man I thought it's getting old. We need to get on with life. Yes, there is a terrorist threat. Ask the rest of the world. They've been dealing with it for many years. I spent a couple of years in England in the early 80s. The local department stores all had information notices about suspected bombs. I missed one London Christmas bombing by less than 12 hours. I was in Italy in the mid-80s. The week before I arrived the Rome airport was turned into a butcher shop by terrorists. American generals were kidnapped from their homes and airplanes and ships were fairly regularly bombed and hijacked.

Yes, 9/11 was a tragedy, however life should go on. The city I live in has cut the police force and murders and other crime are rising. There was a presidential visit last week that lasted a couple of hours. How many local cops could the money spent on that visit hired? I wouldn't be surprised if the total budget of that visit exceeded the annual budget of our city. Let's get our priorities straight. Let's start spending more money and time fighting local crime and quit worrying so much if some half-baked country has the potential to think about the possibility of maybe developing weapons of mass destruction.

2fers: FBI Crime Stats and Beautiful Detroit