Terrorism - Homeland Security - Money

Posted on June 2, 2006

Cross Posted from Gribbit’s Word
This week there has been an outcry over the intention of the Homeland Security Department to shift the awarding of block grants from big cities like New York and Boston to medium sized cities like Nashville and Las Vegas. New York believes since they were the site of the largest terrorist strike ever to hit the US, they are automatically entitled to the lion’s share of the grant money.

The logic behind the change is that since these grant monies started to be awarded, the large cities like New York have increased their abilities to handle potential threats so now it’s time to spread that money to other communities so that they can do the same.

For instance, look what happened in Nashville…

Authorities said they found pipe bombs and a jar containing the potentially deadly poison ricin while searching a home in suburban Nashville.

The ricin was found sealed in a baby food jar in a shed at the home of William Micheal Matthews, according to a joint statement Thursday from Nashville police, the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and health officials. SOURCE

Obviously there was federal funding and investigations involved in this incident because the ATF and FBI were involved in the raid. But what if the ATF and FBI weren’t involved. What if this individual went undetected until he used those weapons? There would be destroyed property, dead and sick people to deal with, and evacuation of other residents to prevent the spread of that poison.

It only takes 500 micrograms of ricin to kill an adult human. That amount could fit on the head of a pin. After all, look what happened in Japan just a few years ago.

Seized in the raid also were five gun silencers, a bowl containing ricin residue and bomb-making materials. So it is evident that Matthews was going to use these items for some sinister plan.

The FBI and ATF raided the home in response to a tip from Matthews’ wife. Matthews himself is serving 9 months in jail for violating a protection order taken out on him by his wife.

Matthews was recently fired from his job in the city’s drug court testing lab because of sexual harassment complaints the city received from female co-workers.

This is just one example of what could happen in small and medium sized cities. Not all terrorists are Islamic fanatics. We have some home grown fanatics of our own.

Al Qeada has done the large scale attack and understands that we have taken steps to secure these types of targets. The next target out of them will be somewhere that attracts large numbers of people and exemplifies American decadence. Somewhere like Las Vegas or Miami.

An attack on the Las Vegas Strip could potentially kill more people at one time than died at the WTC. A ricin attack could easily pass from person to person through close contact on the crowded Strip.

To people in New York, America stops at the city limits. They don’t mind high gas prices because they don’t have to drive 40 miles to go to work or 20 to go to a grocery store. New Yorkers believe that they are the absolute center of the universe.

The fact is that New York has an Army. Their Police Force is the largest single city law enforcement agency in the world. It is cities and towns struggling to employ enough police officers that cannot afford to build a terrorism/disaster response team and the additional security measures necessary to secure and protect their citizens. It is these cities that have smaller tax bases that need the funding to assist in these efforts.

New York has utilized their status as the media capital of the US to do their crying on all the alphebet networks and FoxNews the past 2 days. But what about Nashville?