After the September 11th attacks, the Department of Homeland Security was put together with two major goals in mind: deter further terrorist strikes, and respond to disasters, both natural and man-made -- since the evacuation plans, medical responses, and the like are largely the same in either case.
Four years and countless billions of dollars later, we've seen a clumsy, ten-thumbed response from DHS [to Hurricane Katrina]. Ships and troops were delayed for days before they were ordered to the disaster zone. Tens of thousands were left stranded, without food or water or medical care, while relief agencies were turned away.
All this, after a disaster everyone knew was coming. Now, imagine what would have happened after a surprise attack. Al Qaeda operatives have to be wondering the same thing. It's as if we've hung a giant "kick me" sign around the nation's neck.|Why Katrina Matters - DefenseTech|
Well said. I'd call this author a safety-hawk. This may overlap with being a greenhawk, someone interested in energy security and national security.
Mitzi Wertheim, a consultant to the DoD’s Office of Force Transformation [helped lead the greenhawk effort]. Dan Nolan, a retired Army colonel in charge of energy projects for the Rapid Equipping Force, crunched numbers to show that, since the transport of fuel to forward bases had become the soft target favored by insurgents, energy-inefficiency was costing the Army lives. Since then, the Army has begun to deploy tents made of solar-capturing materials to supply the energy needs of the bases. And also fuel-cell-powered vehicles that take advantage of the same innovations in batteries that have made laptops so small.
|The "Greenhawk" Moment - Standpoint|
