HoodaThunk?

I just got done reading a letter to the editor in the Loudoun Easterner, a regional newspaper out here. To be completely honest, I thought I was reading the first-time efforts of a middle-school student to address the adult issues of national security. When I got to the end of the letter, however, I discovered that the author was a man who is running for office as the Congressional Representative to the House for the 10th District of Virginia. His name is Neeraj Nigam and you can read his letter here. His salient points:

The best way to stop terrorism is to:

1. Not allow them into the country. Has anyone asked BSF and the INS why they are not doing the job they have been created to do?

2. Make our response against terrorism swift and severe so that terrorists will think twice before attacking America. We need to concentrate on terrorists, not the people caught in the middle who are just trying to survive; and

3. Stop support for terrorism, by providing help and support to those caught in the middle. Terrorism by its very nature is an aversion for everyone. If we cannot capitalize on this without the use of force or threats, then we are doing something wrong. Only when the world turns against terrorists can we even start feeling safe.

Neeraj Nigam

Independent candidate for Virginia 10th District Congressman

I’m afraid I couldn’t let that go and decided to write a letter to the editor of my own. Rather than re-hash what I’ve already written, here’s the text of my letter, in full.

I am a strong proponent of ordinary citizens running for elected office which only makes reading the letter from Neeraj Nigam published in your September 6, 2006 edition all the more difficult. I applaud that this man wishes to run for office. I cannot, however, overlook the glaring flaws in his logic and general approach.

Mr. Nigam begins by claiming that “little is being done” to bring the culprits of 9/11 to justice. In five years a large number of those culprits have been killed, captured, or put so much on the run that they are no longer an immediate threat. To be sure, more work lies ahead but to casually dismiss all the efforts and successes we’ve had in this arena displays a profound disconnect from the truth of the situation.

He segues immediately into disapproval for the government’s use of personal data such as medical, financial, and telecom records. He contends that the task of analyzing this data it too large and too time-consuming to be of any value. I would contend he’s correct – so long as we continue to suggest cutting the funding to perform that task. The data he’s referring to is used daily by large corporations to make marketing decisions and the like. It clearly can be done, so long as the will to do it exists. His suggestion that we don’t need to do this to be secure isn’t backed up by even a suggestion of what to do, instead, so this comes off as little more than a simple complaint.

Right on the heels of wagging his finger at the government for trying to proactively identify terrorists before they actually strike, he then complains that the government isn’t being proactive enough. His suggestion that “[w]e should have thought of liquid explosives before the terrorists” is simply mystifying. Briefly consider all the various places a person could hide liquid or plastic explosives and then ask yourself: are you suggesting the government ban all those items today? Considering the braying complaints I heard over the banning of liquid in carry-ons when they actually did that for a reason, I can’t see the public supporting such a ban without some credible intel besides saying, “well, they might do that some time in the future.”

I have read Mr. Nigam’s web site [ed: it's here] and there are quite a number of stances he and I agree upon. His suggestions in his  letter, however, are just not Congressional material. First, his reference to the “BSF” and “INS” show that he’s unaware of the actual agencies that operate in the American government. The “BSF” apparently refers to the “Border Security Force” which is an Indian government agency, not American. We have the Border Patrol, a component of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. CBP used to be part of the INS, but that was when the INS (Immigrations and Naturalization Service) was actually an agency here. That agency was split up literally years ago. I would submit that a working knowledge of the active agencies here in the US would be a good set of base knowledge for a candidate for federal office.

To the point, however, he contends that the CBP shouldn’t be allowing terrorists into the country in the first place. Well, I agree, but identifying them is the rub, isn’t it? To suggest they shouldn’t be trying to ID terrorists yet should stop them anyway is, my apologies, ludicrous. He suggests our response to terrorists should be swift and severe. I agree with him but we’re back to identifying them, aren’t we? To say nothing of the resistance to such a stance the Democrats in general immediately put up the second the administration even breathes a word about military action. Finally, he asserts that terrorism “is an aversion for everyone.” Clearly, it is not. There are people out there who aren’t doing it because there’s no other method. They’re engaging in terrorism because they like the results and they think it’s the fastest way to get what they want. People like that aren’t going to be talked out of it and that, in the end, is what Mr. Nigam appears to support.

I am glad there are people like Mr. Nigam out there who feel that elected office should be and is within the grasp of the common citizen. I credit his zeal in this regard. However, there can be only one Congressional Representative for the 10th District in Virginia and Mr. Nigam’s letter shows that it’s not him.