:
Contrary to America's infatuation with instant gratification,
protective imagination is not quickly built, funded, or enacted. It
takes years to inculcate such a mindset brought about by outside the
box, unconventional, and daring thinking from folks with expertise and
years of firsthand knowledge in areas far beyond security or law
enforcement and who are encouraged to think freely and have their
analyses seriously considered in the halls of Washington. Such a radical way of thinking and planning is necessary to
deal with an equally radical adversary, yet we remain entrenched in
conventional wisdom and responses.Here at home, for all
the money spent in the name of homeland security, we're not acting
against the terrorists, we're reacting against them, and doing so in a
very conventional, very ineffective manner. Yet nobody seems to be
asking why.