Remember, terrorists hate our culture

I'm a big fan of aerial photographs, in particular Microsoft's Virtual Earth, with "birds eye" views. Such views provide a view you just can't get from the ground, including some places you normally can't even see, like the military aircraft graveyard [note: links may only work with Internet Explorer] at Davis Monthan Air Force base near Tucson Arizona. It's the perfect way to locate a new destination before driving there. You'll not only know what your destination looks like, but what the surrounding area looks like.

It's a great way to explore at zero cost and very little time. Recently, I went exploring in Washington, DC. I had done that before, but I discovered something different this time. First, let me show and direct you to wonderful, very detailed views of some of what we might consider "national treasures":

Here's the National Gallery of Art


... or the Smithsonian or the National Air & Space Museum

Impressive images, but let's take a look at the White House:



No, I didn't mess with the photo, but obviously somebody did, to obscure any details. The same is true of the overhead aerial view... no details at all. Curious, I shifted around the city and made the following discovery... clear images of everything except these buildings:

the White House
the Capitol
the two Senate office buildings
the two House office buildings

Those all look as bad as the White House. In a city full of "national" buildings... the capitol of our nation, filled with monuments to our culture, isn't it peculiar that only images of those 6 buildings are blurred out? I can only assume that someone decided to obscure those buildings for security reasons... presumably to keep them from aiding terrorists.

Remember, we've been told repeatedly by our government that terrorists hate our American culture. Of course, most of us didn't believe that, did we? If that were really true, terrorists would be targeting many of the other buildings in Washington that house American culture. The images of the National Archives, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of American History (and even the Pentagon) are not obscured. None of the monuments are either.

Terrorists hate our government... not our people, or our culture, or our way of life. In my opinion, these doctored aerial images confirm exactly that. The only images obscured are where our elected politicans work. Obviously, our government knows precisely who should be afraid of terrorists, and they're telling us clearly who they care about protecting... themselves.