National Security Catch 22

What a conundrum we find ourselves within! We want to be safe from the next terrorist attack and we realize we don't have enough agents and specialists who speak Arabic and other critical languages. We know we missed signals about September 11th because of these and other deficiencies in our security networks.

But prejudice and bigotry keep getting in the way. How are we supposed to profile those most responsible for these threats to our civilization and, at the same time, trust any of them? As Laurel and Hardy would say, "this is a fine mess you've gotten us in this time!" On one hand our bigotry, on the other these bad folks who we just know want to do us harm. Who do we trust?

In this Administration they trust their bigotry. Many Arabic language specialists were drummed out of military intelligence for, gasp!, their sexual orientation. Granted that was before the World Trade Center attacks. How about since?

The FBI apparently wasn't willing to trust their own agent. After a four year investigation the Agency has been accused of profiling their own personnel. There have been numerous other media articles written the last several years examining cases where Americans of arab descent wanted to do their patriotic service to this country and were denied the opportunity.

This is absurd. Must we subject every American to a patriotic litmus test? Must everyone take a loyalty oath before we trust them? What happened to those intensive background checks the FBI used to be so good at doing? Now they don't even trust their own.

The bottom line is we won't be safer until we cast aside our prejudices and our bigotry. We cannot afford not to do so.