JOHN CARTER

One of the greatest protections our government can afford in an increasingly dangerous world is the ability to gather intelligence and use that knowledge to protect Americans from harm. Would any of us argue that it is not a dangerous world? The threat of terrorism is alive and real.

Sadly there are many in Congress who do not agree with our Central Texas commonsense. Recently, the House of Representatives discussed national security and the priority of intelligence-gathering as laid forth in the 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill. But you may be interested to know that this bill, crafted by Democrats, is bringing a new and more “relaxed” attitude to the intelligence community. An example: this bill requires the Director of National Intelligence to submit a report that discusses the effects of global warming and climate change. Does this sound like an intelligence function to you?

What this means in layman terms is that our finite intelligence-gathering resources – satellites, man hours, and taxpayer dollars – will be used to measure melting glaciers in summer time, instead of the threats being hurled at America by Osama bin Laden and his band of thugs.

The great value of gathering intelligence is that it allows us to thwart terrorist plans before they materialize. With that said, this vigilance is never done. We must be ever mindful of the threats that exist and take steps to prevent them. While things may appear calm on the surface, that is no reason to send our precious intelligence resources to Antarctica to research climate change.

This irresponsible interpretation of “intelligence gathering” is nothing new for liberals. President Clinton during his administration slashed funding for intelligence collection and analysis, but added money for frivolous projects such as the “DCI Environmental Center.” This center was notorious for wasting intelligence resources. The center diverted precious spy satellite time to survey the polar ice caps and sea turtle nests on beaches.

Similarly, this Congress is showing a preference for conducting “politically correct” intelligence. Those supporting this effort are the same ones who railed against flawed intelligence during the War on Terror, and yet their solution is to peel away valuable resources to study liberal priorities, like global warming.

In addition, the Democratic majority has also killed efforts to end – or in fact to even audit – wasteful spending funneled through the intelligence budget that could have been better directed to true national security interests. By shutting the door to fiscal restraint and accountability, liberals are paving the road to the “politically correct” intelligence community they’ve envisioned for decades.

America is at an important impasse of national security and partisan politics. One of these will protect us; the other will not. Spy satellites, intelligence analysts, and taxpayer dollars only go so far in the effort to protect us from another 9/11. Can we really afford to send some of them to Antarctica in the quest to measure glaciers? Make no mistake about it; the terrorists want another 9/11. With the Democrats’ plan – will we be ready?

Due to technical restrictions, Congressman Carter is unfortunately not able to directly answer questions posed on this forum.