http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/ stories/2006/07/18/07182006wacedit.html Anti-terrorism funding confuses terrorists Tuesday, July 18, 2006 The people in charge of the Department of Homeland Security deserve credit for confusing terrorists. While terrorists have attacked crowded commuter trains, buses and prominent symbolic targets in major cities around the world, U.S. Homeland Security experts have concluded that America's most probable terrorist targets are obscure. Until Homeland Security officials released the results of an audit of the National Asset Database, it's unlikely that many global terrorists knew that Indiana had the greatest number of potential terrorist targets. No less than 8,591 potential terror targets were identified in Indiana, far more than in New York or Washington, D.C. The new list of national terrorist targets must be terribly confusing to the terrorists, which is good thing. Unfortunately, this list of potential terrorist targets also has confused Americans. Worse, this new list is being used to allocate federal funds to help areas with potential targets defend and respond to terrorist attacks. Recently a coordinated series of bombs tore apart crowded commuter trains in Mumbai, India, killing at least 200 people. This attack followed similar deadly terrorist attacks on crowded commuter trains and buses in Spain, London and Israel. The new Homeland Security list of potential terrorist targets, however, has downgraded the likelihood of attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., and instead directed more funding to protect the Amish Country Popcorn Factory in Berne, Ind., Old MacDonald's Petting Zoo in Woodville, Ala., the Mule Day Parade in Colombia, Tenn., and the Kangaroo Conservation Center in Dawsonville, Ga. Despite all the talk about how terrorists can slip across this nation's largely unprotected borders, Homeland Security funds were cut to Texas, which has more than 1,700 miles of shared border with Mexico and 1,890 miles of largely unprotected waterfront that includes bays and estuaries along the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, anti-terrorism funding will be boosted to Nebraska, a state identified as having 3,457 potential terrorist targets. San Diego, a city with huge military installations and home port to many U.S. warships, was downgraded as a terrorist target, stripping the city of millions in Homeland Security funding. Because each state got to submit its own list of potential terrorist targets, and no state wanted to admit that it didn't have anything worthy of an attack, states included an ice cream parlor, a flea market, the Association for Jewish Blind, a Rolls Royce plant, a yacht repair business, a casket store, a doughnut shop and many thousands of similar "targets." Homeland Security officials, who promise to refine the list next year, have demonstrated a frightening lack of common sense in the way they allocate funds to combat terrorism.
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