U.S. Sees Economic Crisis as Top Security Threat.

[elleng]

Source: NYT/Reuters

'The global economic crisis has become the biggest near-term U.S. security concern, causing instability in a quarter of the world's countries and threatening destructive trade wars, U.S. intelligence agencies reported on Thursday.

The director of National Intelligence's annual threat assessment also said al Qaeda's leadership had been weakened over the last year. But security in Afghanistan had deteriorated and Pakistan had to gain control over its border areas before the situation could improve.

"The financial crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging market nations over the next year," said the report. It said a wave of "destructive protectionism" was possible as countries find they cannot export their way out of the slump.

"Time is our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests," it said.'



Read more: http://nytimes.com/reuters/2009/02/12/news/news-us-security-usa-economy.html

[santamargarita]

1. They say al Qaeda, could be, but the biggest threat to this country is...

...Fascist Republicans and Centrist!

[Demeter]

2. What About the White Supremacist in Maine

shot dead by his abused wife, who had the recipe and ingredients for a dirty bomb or two?

We don't need to look under the beds for Al Queda. Just look in the 7-11 and the bar and the meth labs...and so forth.

[llmart]

3. What????

I thought old ladies who don't take their shoes off at the airport were our biggest threat. Well, smack me upside the head. Here, all along, the repukes have been fillin' our heads with terra, terra, terra, and it turns out we have a whole lot more to be worried about.

[unkachuck]

4. just 3 weeks after leaving office....

....it's being acknowledged that the bush administration and the republican party were a major threats to our national security....the gross mismanagement of our economy and our government by these incapable criminals has now made us less safe and less secure....

"Instability can loosen the fragile hold that many developing countries have on law and order, which can spill out in dangerous ways to the international community," Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee."

....this dispels the big-lie that republicans are the 'strong on national defense' party....although they still can claim that they are, 'the strong on spending trillions of borrowed taxpayer dollars for meaningless wars to gin-up corporate profit' party....