Cathy Lanier had to think like a terrorist and come up with a way to kill a few thousand people at a picnic in San Luis Rey. The virtual town in California, repeatedly cursed with smallpox epidemics, explosions and attacks on its nuclear power plant, is part of her new education: The commander of special operations for D.C. police is earning a master’s degree in the fast-growing field of homeland security.

Schools across the country are catering to such students as Lanier by revamping curricula and research as they try to keep pace with the changes brought on by the 2001 terrorist attacks and take advantage of a large pool of homeland security money. At hundreds of schools, Sept. 11 is influencing how many topics are taught — from medicine to firefighting to politics to computer networking…

“Homeland security is probably going to be the government’s biggest employer in the next decade,” said Steven R. David, who directs the homeland security certificate program at Johns Hopkins University…

“There is a larger, compelling calling here,” said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at GWU. “This is our generation’s war — it’s not going away.”

Wash Post: Free Reg

Let me clear something up for the brain-dead. You can save all our money that you are using to educate people about homeland security by adopting a foreign policy more akin to Canada, Germany, Norway, Japan, or New Zealand. In other words, stop pissing people off, and work within the context of international consensus about human rights, representative government, and the organizations set up to lobby for these worthy causes.

If you would rather continue to blow off those organizations and you would rather torture innocent people (directly) in Cuba, or (indirectly) in Tashkent, then you can expect to pay an exorbitant price in both taxpayer treasure and moral credibility.

I am speaking to both parties here. Wake up. Homeland security is best secured by changing policies, not by distracting co-eds from their legitimate studies.