Embassy posts "too dangerous for U.S. diplomats to bring families has doubled, from 10 to 21."

[ProSense]

Safer since 9/11? The AP reports, “Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the number of (embassy) posts deemed too dangerous for U.S. diplomats to bring families has doubled, from 10 to 21.” Americans posted to embassies face lockdowns and severe travel restrictions. “The policy we have for diplomatic security actually makes us less secure as a nation because it limits our ability to carry out our mission in critical environments,” said former senior Foreign Service officer Patrick Fine.

...Are we individually safer? In certain situations, yes. But are we collectively, as a country, more secure? Profoundly not. But the question that we ought to be debating, the question that America needs us to wrestle with, is not “are we safer than we were the day the Twin Towers fell?” The real question is: nearly six years after 9-11, are we as safe as we should be? And what must the next president do to get us there?

This much is clear: We are not yet doing all that we should be. We are clearly losing ground in the fight against terrorists worldwide. We have created more terrorists than we have killed. We are more isolated internationally. We are more divided domestically. And more than at any time in modern history, our forces are stretched to the breaking point.

The question of our present state of security is not simply an academic one, designed for think tank analysis. It’s the essential challenge before our country today. Americans deserve -- and policy-makers must demand -- a better debate—and that’s precisely why the American Security Project was founded.

In recent years, Washington’s preferred currency for discussing national security has too often been cleverly sculpted sound bites, full of simplistic sloganeering, and calculated to scare people—not inform them. Often light on strategic thinking, sometimes light on truth, these sound bites – or slogans – are geared to polarize and obscure rather than galvanize and inform. It is no surprise that six months after the invasion of Iraq, 7 in 10 Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9-11. That didn’t happen by accident – and it provides a window into the poverty of our political discourse and our failure to communicate reality to the American people. We have to do a better job. We cannot accept a dialogue that—willingly or otherwise—obscures the reality of the threats we face and drowns out the real choices for making America safer... --- John Kerry

[ThomWV]

1. K&R - Its a Sign

[aquart]

2. Thanks, George. You've made us so much safer.

[ProSense]

3. Kick! n/t

[wisteria]

4. Another wonderful development brought to us by the mismanagement style of GW Bush! n/