National Defense

I wrote this paper for my high school Forensics (Speech) class. Read it over and let me know what you think of it. Any comments/constructive criticism will be appreciated.

 Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State, said while speaking about the terror attacks of September 11 “This is comparable to Pearl Harbor, and we must have the same response.  And the people who did it must have the same end as the people who attacked Pearl Harbor.”  The horrific attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Towers shocked our nation and forever changed our way of thinking.  We realized that even though America is the world’s only superpower, we are not invincible.  We came to understand, as Benjamin Netanyahu, the Former Prime Minister of Israel, put it “…the unchecked growth of terrorism is a grave danger in and of itself.  Rampant terrorism is a mortal threat to any society.”  If we are to preserve American democracy, we must take firm and decisive action against our nation’s enemies.

 First, we must not stand idly by while terrorist organizations continue to plot attacks against us.  We have taken many steps in the right direction.  The War on Terrorism is a valiant effort to defend our nation’s interests.  By hunting down the terrorists that did this to us we send them a message.  That message is “There will be a consequence for your actions.”

 But simple retaliation is not a complete solution to our ever present trial.  A much better answer to the problem is to prevent future attacks before they occur.  But how are we to go about such a thing?  The PATRIOT Act is a perfect example of one method of prevention.  This Act gives our government increased powers of surveillance so that it can monitor individuals known and suspected to have links to terrorist organizations.  The internet has brought unprecedented information into our culture.  With ever-expanding search engines, information, both good and evil, is much more accessible than it has ever been before.  It is not hard for an individual to find information on how to build a wide variety of bombs, how to make a large assortment of illegal drugs, and how to commit treacherous acts of cyber terrorism.  For these reasons and more our government has established the PATRIOT Act.  No matter how good you think our government is, it does not have the ability to predict when terrorists will strike.  George W. Bush hit this nail right on the head when he rhetorically asked the question “Since when have terrorists announced their intentions?”  They haven’t, and they never will.  Our government needs tools such as the PATRIOT Act to learn about individuals who would conspire to carry out such an event.

 Reexamining the words of Henry Kissinger, it is not necessary to have an absolutely parallel response to 9/11 as we did to the bombing on December 7, 1941.  Immediately after Pearl Harbor, our government incarcerated over 110,000 Japanese-Americans.  We did this because we felt that the Japanese population of Hawaii contained spies still loyal to Japan.  These innocent people were imprisoned for six years until the war was over.  This was a gross act of misconduct on the part of the United States government.  We must not let such a violation of civil rights to occur again.  Not many days ago, George W. Bush introduced the Total Information Awareness system.  This act allows our government to monitor such things as: what we read at the library and even what we buy at the stores; it, in reality, gives our government total information about all of us.  Once again, this is a direct violation of our right to privacy. As Patrick Henry once said “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.” We must take necessary actions to defend ourselves, but we absolutely cannot allow such a misuse of governmental power to continue.

 Terrorists and civil liberties violations are, by far, not the only thing threatening American security.  Many other countries of the world are threatening our country’s safety.  We know that Saddam Hussein has in his possession: 25,000 liters of Anthrax, 35,000 liters of VX Nerve Gas, and 38,000 liters of Botulism.  He has many mobile weapons labs, too.  Also, Iraq has 30,000 weapons delivery systems; only 16 of these have been accounted for.  Recently, Saddam purchased numerous metal jackets used for nuclear missiles and vast amounts of uranium.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from that.  He has used weapons against his own people when he gassed the Kurds, and he will do anything to keep his position.  As President Bush said, he has these weapons to “…dominate, intimidate, and attack.”  And I would like to add that simply removing Saddam from power will not get rid of these weapons of mass destruction.

 Iraq is not the only threat facing this country today.  Many countries such as Communist North Korea have nuclear capabilities.  Rather than directly striking North Korea and risking nuclear retaliation, we ought to greatly build up our National Missile Defense program.  This way we do not start any unnecessary battles, but we are still prepared if we are attacked by air.  But some weapons may enter our country more stealthily than by air.  Some may come straight across our borders into our country.  If we are to prevent this, tighter border security must be enacted.  We can also use sanctions and diplomacy to stop production of and encourage the destruction of weapons of mass destructions.

 One more thing that is working against us is a nearly total lack of organization between federal agencies.  Many critics have blamed the FBI for not preventing the 9/11 attacks.  Perhaps this is true, but in any case the creation of a new federal agency, the Department of Homeland Security, is not the answer.  There is an almost total lack of communication and collaboration between agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, and National Security Agency.  Adding another department to this mess will not clear things up; it may, in fact, cause more disarray and prove to be more of a problem.  What we need instead is better organization and more processing power for these organizations. The FBI received warnings that an attack would occur in New York on September 11, 2001, but was unable to even process these claims until one week after the tragedy took place.  The addition of another agency wouldn’t have solved this.  What will fix this however, are more workers for these federal agencies.  More man power means more people that can examine information collected by these agencies.  This will allow these organizations to better utilize the information that they have.

 I have given you four imminent threats to the United States’ defense: terrorism, civil rights violations, foreign threats, and lack of organization between federal agencies.  In addition, I have given you solutions to all of these.  Our answer to terrorism shall be a continued War on Terrorism, at home and abroad.  To the civil rights violations we shall reply by challenging the Constitutionality of things such as the Total Information Awareness program.  Next, we can respond to foreign enemies by strengthening our National Missile Defense program, using sanctions, employing diplomacy, and increasing border security.  Finally, our answer to the lack of communication and collaboration between federal agencies is quite easy; it is the addition of more workers.

 As an editorial in the New York Times said, “A concerted effort to remake the nation’s defenses must be taken immediately.”

By: Steven Moxley

I thought it was a good sum up of what the mainstream concerns are for the government and people.

Though I thought it was a little bit too mainstream. It almost reads like a white house press release, except for the little bit about being cautious against those who challenge civil liberties. The problem with regurgitating this stuff is what if people hear something often enough they will start to believe it, no matter what it is.

For example, I would not necessarily agree that Iraq is the threat it is dressed up to be. You don’t have to agree with me, that is just one example.
I also think there is not enough emphasis on public relations and improving America’s relationship with muslim countries as a challenge that is just as important as security concerns; both ways can lead to better security.
Perhaps you should add something a little bit more unconventional in your speech. It might make it more interesting or creative. Well, good luck. I think you are a fine writer.