At What Price Security?

I am a veteran of the U.S. Navy. I believe a strong and well-trained military is vital to our national interests.

What follows is in no way critical of the U.S. Air Force or our men and women in uniform.

Time magazine, March 24 issue:

Page 55 shows what appears to be a busy city street in a Middle Eastern country. A young mother walks through the crowd carrying a child, while a slightly older child walks by her side. Just off to the right is a scruffy-looking man with a beard and sneaky eyes. In the background stands another man, nondescript, but seems to be staring at the woman.

The caption is a question: "How do you fight an enemy who hides among the innocent?"

Page 57 answers the question this way: "Never let them out of your sight."

Featured on this page is a U.S. Air Force "state of the art surveillance aircraft" flying over what appears to be a Middle Eastern city.

These two pages constitute an advertisement for the United States Air Force.

It gave me the chills. Here's why:

First of all, keeping an eye on bad guys hiding among the innocent is not "fighting" the enemy.

Unfortunately, as the U.S., Israel and other countries have discovered, fighting an enemy hiding among the innocent will result in "collateral damage." Innocent people are going to be hurt, perhaps destroyed.

Secondly, even though it may have to be done in a war zone, the thought of a U.S. Air Force spy plane circling in the air above a populous city surveilling its citizens is unnerving, to say the least...

Especially when you think of what might happen when a president like Bush, who sees no limits to his powers as prezident or commander-in-chief, orders the Air Force to surveil Washington, D.C. to locate a rebellious group of senators working on his impeachment so he can have them arrested?

Don't say it can't happen here. Bush has already ordered illegal surveillance on numerous occasions. And with our system of checks and balances crumbled to rubble, it is a very short flight to a spy in the sky.

Here's another very interesting article dealing with this issue from a little different standpoint.