"They" have all the cool tools

[ballistic gelatin]

To be totally honest, this makes me very uncomfortable. Does anybody here work for the Homeland Security Department?

-----

SANTA FE, N.M. (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has bought for about $5 million the small New Mexico ghost town of Playas, and plans to transform it into a terrorist response training center, officials said on Friday.

Training at the 1,840-acre town about 40 miles north of the Mexican border, could provide training for U.S. Marines in urban warfare and a first responders program that includes testing responses to various terrorist bombing possibilities, they said.

The facility could also be used to look at ways in which biological and chemical warfare may affect a small town, said an official responsible for running the training center.

New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, an undergraduate and graduate school specializing in science and engineering, will run the training center, which was purchased for "close to $5 million dollars" from Phelps Dodge, said Lonnie Marquez, acting vice-president of administration and finance at New Mexico Tech.

"We've been pursuing this since the town was first made available so we're pretty excited," he said. "Our programs will be in support of Homeland Security."

Playas was built in the early 1970s to house the employees and infrastructure of the Phelps Dodge copper smelter, which shut down in 1999 leaving a virtual ghost town. About 40 families still live in the town, but may have to move once the federal government finalizes the purchase, Marquez said.

edited for language

 

[LawDog]

I was under the impression that FLETC at Glynco and the FBI Academy at Quantico were already set up for this kind of thing. Plus, I doubt if there is an Army installation worth its' name that doesn't already have a MOUT set-up.

I swear, this Reason #2 why I screamed bloody murder when I heard that DHS was being created. it's just another excuse to spend oodles of taxpayer money to duplicate what some other agency(ies) has (have) already done.

Only a goat-roping politician would decide that it would be a Good Idea to create an agency to do what the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA and State Department are already doing. Why?

The canned response from my Senator was that the DHS was created because of a perceived 'lack of communication' between agencies.

Duh!

I tell you what. If the Federal Government wasn't busy roping goats over half of Creation, they would have cleaned of the Plexi-Glass panels in their midsections, taken a hard look at the situation and started bloody well FIRING agency employees, starting at the top and moving down.

"Share information."

"No, it's classified."

"You're fired. NEXT!"

Take about a week, tops, before the message sank in.

There! I just saved taxpayers from having to fund the entire budget of the Homeland Security Agency for the next hundred years.


LawDog

 

[Art Eatman]

I've been in the general area numerous times. That land is worth every bit of $50 an acre. I grant that I've never been to beautiful downtown Playas, but I'd bet the buildings there ain't such a much. Just another part of the unending shuckin' and jivin' on the public billfold.

Plus what LawDog said.

Art

 

[Jeff White]

Heard a commentator on Fox News come up with the best explanation yet as to why we have a department of Homeland Security.

It exists so the GW can blame Tom Ridge if there is another terrorist attack on US soil. Makes sense when you think about it. The Democrats were eager to help, because it gives them a scapegoat too it there is an attack while their man is in office.

Of course like any good government agency it will have to grow and expand so all the low and midlevel functionaries can get promoted. Of course real seciurity will cost too much. This will ultimately be what the old Civil Defense ended up as...eyewash that spends a lot of our money but provides no actual security.

Jeff

 

[garrettwc]

Law Dog, you are on the right track. But you would have to start at the Congress Critter level.

One of the main reasons the various alphabet agencies don't share information is because they compete against one another for a slice of the federal budget pie. This is how congress has been doing it for years.

Let's say you're director of CIA, NSA and you have info on terrorists that could help the FBI nail them. If you give up that info and FBI succeeds in capture/prevention of major event like 9/11 then FBI gets carte blance at budget hearings for years to come, while you have to settle for the crumbs.

IMHO reasoning like that stinks.

But that is precisely the kind of thinking that is running our various federal agencies. The first priority is to protect the budget. Any service to the people is secondary.

I don't feel the rank and file field agents are the problem, as we found out later that several of them were sounding the alarm long ago. The problem lies with the pencil pushers that report to the Congressional subcommittees.

 

[mussi]

"Share information."

"No, it's classified."

"You're fired. NEXT!"

Take about a week, tops, before the message sank in.

There! I just saved taxpayers from having to fund the entire budget of the Homeland Security Agency for the next hundred years.

(Excerpt from the Lawdog managment manual).

 

[LawDog]

Excerpt from the Lawdog managment manual

Two words which give FedGov parasites screaming nightmares:

President LawDog

LawDog

 

[George Hill]

He's got my Vote.

 

[Nightcrawler]

Mine too, actually.

It's ridiculous. Not that the Marines will have a place to train for urban warefare, but there are already PLENTY of places. At Fort Leonard Wood, MO, there's a HUGE urban warfare town used by the MPs and anybody else that can get in. Hell, civvie SWAT teams rent the place to train. (It's called the MP village. I was at Fort Lostinthewoods but never got to go there, being an engineer and all.)

There are literally dozens of such installations at Army and Marine posts around the country. I'm sure the feds could've used one of those just find, but no, Congress has got to have it's pork barrel projects.

 

[Don Gwinn]

I'd vote for President Lawdog. Maybe he oughta be sherriff.

 

[Schuey2002]

I'll vote for ya' as well, LawDog.

When are you running?

 

[El Tejon]

"President LawDog, it's Attorney General El Tejon on line three. He wants to know when he's to begin the prosecution of VPC and Sarah Brady for conspiracy to deny the American people their civil rights?"

And we need this because . . . ? There's always the west side of Chicago, where real urban warfare transpires Daley.

 

[Brian Williams]

Prez Lawdog's cabinet
C.R. Sam Sec of State
Squirllnuts Sec of interior
Tamara Sec of Defence She has enough hardware
Jim March atty gen
Mike Irwin Sec of education
Lawdog's Mom Sec of keepin' Lawdog straight.