by John Ruskin
Gary Bauer asks an interesting question today. Are we prepared? According to Bauer:
"Two incidents have come to light that seriously question our post-9/11 level of preparation. The first: How did a man with an extremely virulent form of drug-resistant tuberculosis manage to get on two trans-Atlantic flights and enter the country by car from Canada?
The government has now issued its first quarantine order in more than 40 years, and health officials all over the world are rushing to track down and test more than 100 passengers and crew. This incident clearly has implications for the debate on border control and the war against Islamofascism, which leads to the second item.
An article in today’s Washington Times follows up on the disturbing events that occurred on the 2004 Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles involving 13 Middle Eastern men traveling on expired visas, which were renewed in spite of background checks that turned up positive hits on eight of the men in the FBI’s database.
After years of denying the events and even launching character attacks against the passengers who spoke up, there is now an official report stating that there was in fact a dry run on Flight 327 probing our security. But why did the government try to deny it in the first place and impugn the character of its own citizens in the process?
As conservatives, we are skeptical of big government because it breeds bureaucracy, and bureaucracy inevitably makes things worse. But the one area where government is necessary is national defense, and here is more evidence of bureaucratic incompetence."
Well said. Makes you wonder how prepared we are here in Illinois. Whatever happened to all that federal homeland security money we received? Rod? Emil? Mike? Rich?
