Coast Guard Scares Capital Senseless on 9-11

Friday, September 11, 2009

Jim Harper, director of information policy studiesjharper@cato.org:

The "scare" produced by Coast Guard exercises on the Potomac today illustrates how sensitive the country remains to terror fears. Despite improved rhetoric and the promise of sensible, strategic counterterrorism, the Obama administration has yet to give the country confidence in its security. It has not articulated its counterterrorism plan and it has not created or implemented a terrorism communications plan. Unlike health care and education, these are responsibilities of the federal chief executive.

The fact that this could possibly have transpired on the anniversary of 9/11 amplifies the absurdity of the incident.

Without a strategy and communications plan in place, the administration will be at a loss to keep the nation on an even keel if and when any future terror incident occurs. The Obama administration must plan, and must be seen as having planned, if it is to prevent any future terrorism event from needlessly harming the country with panicky overreaction.

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