I would like to suggest a discussion which surrounds growing demands by Belgians and other Europeans to remove 200 missle heads, nuclear weapons from European soil including Turkey….

The role is NATO must be reevaluated and a German-led EU, with shiny new war ships sailing in the Mediterannean as well as a fast deployment Army, all contrary to Agreements signed at the end of WWII and before you Mr. President or you Mrs. Clinton even think of giving these weapons to the Europeans, as a US citizen I demand that a full Congressional hearing be convened to discuss the revival of Germany and its prowess to become the power broker in the Middle East. The Germans will rub against the “Thugs of Tehran” and the next WAR will begin, however, I want all our nuclear warheads back in this country as I am tired of the Europeans doing their utmost to diminish America in every way possible -

Mr. President and Mrs. Clinton, no German or European troops should be training in the US and a strong message should be sent to the Germans and Belgians especially letting them know we are well prepared to meet their demands.

A strong America with strong borders is what we here on Main Street USA demand. We are tired of the EU touting its demands, signing trade Agreements with South America and competing in every sense seeking our demise.

This is one American who could see the possibility some day in seeing German missiles launched into the US. The rise of the German manufacturing complex in parallel with the self-seving agenda of the Vatican, well, let’s think out of the box and take our blinders off for the world and allies are changing daily.

Protect our nation at every cost, trust no other for we read and hear the tones and statements from the European officials. We should be quite happy to have the Europeans pick up the tab finally and take care of themselves. Please invite me to the table when discussing this subject for this is one American citizen hearing quite clearly dictates from the German led EU which are very apparent in context!

God Bless America!

Christopher Tingus
chris.tingus@gmail.com

I also think there is a growing fear, both in law enforcement and the citizenry of an “us” vs “them” mentality as well. These horizontal and vertical paradoxes are only growing as the lack of understanding and elevated expectations the source article spoke of. Having been in and around law enforcement professionals my entire life and also having “cops” in the family since the turn of the 20th century, I can assure you that the requirements of the position have dramatically changed. I’m also not a blind defender of the thin blue line. The growing requirement for more boots on the street may have potentially placed an individual(s) who would not have been selected 20-30 years ago in the pipeline. This is the quagmire leaders are expected to handle and overcome. Tough choices all around.

Expectation management, touched on in the original post, is a necessity. The hyper critical 24 hour news, post incident hindsight (all knowing) and the “someone’s held accountable” mantra put these people in critically hyper precarious positions. Our anticipated outcomes, ones we’ve grown accustomed to, of near perfect resolutions to all scenarios sets our police up, and to a lesser degree, all emergency responders, to fail. Not a good starting point. Also, not taken into account is the drastic change of society and the law over the last thirty years. Coupled with all perfect solutions and a zero defect mentality and viola; zero margin for error.

In the end, there is no favorable outcome. As this series of scenarios plays out, the outcomes we’re all hoping for seem less and less likely to occur. Police departments were never structured to become paramilitary, National Guard outfits. The all black, tactical gear wearing cop scares the population. But, this is what we’ve asked them to become… indeed, touch choices and unfavorable outcomes lie ahead.

Thank you for posting.

It’s the unhappy fate of homeland security and emergency management professionals to have to argue for choices that run counter to conventional metrics of efficiency in the interest of resilience, for which we lack comparable metrics.

First, how much of the time of personnel in the organization is devoted responding to other bureacrats within and without the organization?

Second, how much of the time of personnel is spent dealing with the public through the full spectrum of governmental activites from tax collection, to regulation, to grants, to public information etc.

This simple step would help both OMB and Congress and the people of the US writ large a tool to better understand their government. Of course would recommend it for all governmental and non-governmental organizations.