Trust the government?

There’s so much news breaking, these days, it’s hard to keep up.

It’s overwhelming. There’s just no precedent for it in my 25 years in the news business.

One of the recent stories that didn’t have “legs” because of information overload was one broken by the New York Times Oct. 4. (Too bad that paper’s registration doesn’t permit direct hotlinks to important stories like this.)

“Security for domestic shipments of surface-to-air missiles, cruise missiles and other explosives has been so poor that terrorists could easily obtain them for use in an attack in this country, according to a classified government report and other confidential records,” the story said.

Wow!

The article went on to explain that the General Accounting Office had found stunning lapses in the system for shipping military explosives around the United States by truck. The GAO characterized those lapses as posing “substantial national security or public safety risks.”

The report was issued in July, but, since Sept. 11, takes on new significance.

Listen to some of the details and conclusions:

• Terrorists could obtain weapons of the U.S. military that are moved and temporarily stored in private trucks with little difficulty.

• The U.S. military, unlike Federal Express, often cannot even identify where weapons and explosives are when they are being shipped.

• Investigators found that a shipment of 192 Stinger missiles was left in a civilian storage area without the knowledge of the military or the contractor who shipped them.

• Trucking companies transporting weapons are allowed to leave trucks in commercial-carrier terminals with few safeguards from intruders.

• Investigators were able to access missiles and rockets in storage terminals by simply flashing phony Defense Department credentials.

• Investigators who deliberately tried to raise suspicions were not challenged.

• Gates protecting dangerous materials were left unlocked.

• None of the facilities had alarms to detect intrusions.

• A site responsible for storing Hawk surface-to-air missiles left open its garage door.

• Five sites containing a full military arsenal – including cruise missiles, SAMs, anti-tank rockets, 72 bombs, 14,000 rounds for howitzers and other explosives and munitions – were accessible.

Such irresponsibility on the part of government would lead me to believe it’s not a question of whether terrorists have obtained such deadly firepower … it’s a question of how much.

It also puts the lie to the assertion that only more federal government authority and regulation can make us safe.

These people are the problem.

They are inept at best, co-conspirators with the terrorists at worst.

Just so I’m not accused of using 20-20 hindsight to make my case, let me remind you about the 14 Syrian pilots who were permitted to attend flight schools in Texas recently. This story was broken by WorldNetDaily’s Washington bureau chief Paul Sperry and widely disseminated (with little credit, I might add) after Sept. 11. This incredible oversight took place amid the new awareness of the terrorist threat.

I submit to you only the federal government could be that dumb or that corrupt or that complacent about national security threats of this magnitude.

But, to make matters worse, to my knowledge these Syrians have still not been given the boot.

Neither has the federal government done a thing yet to secure its borders.

Neither has the federal government done anything to clean up corruption in the Customs Department that permits trainloads of material to enter the United States without inspection.

And I’ll bet you a dollar to a donut America’s military weaponry is still not under proper guard when it is in transit.

On and on it goes.

Do you think the answer is more centralized authority and more federal bureaucracy? I don’t. I think that’s the problem.

But what’s the solution?

The American people need to become more self-reliant. They need to hold their government accountable. They need to take matters into their own hands. They need to arm themselves and be prepared to defend themselves. They need to stop looking to Washington for help and start asserting their proper authority in local governments. They need to realize the federal government is a great albatross around their necks – even, unfortunately, in times of crisis.

---

Don’t miss Joseph Farah’s exclusive report “Jihad in America” in the November issue of Whistleblower magazine, WorldNetDaily’s monthly offline publication. Order your subscription now.