America Needs A Homeland Defense Program
by Col. William Flatt
[Originally posted on Sierra Times' message board, 12:14am, Sept. 16, 2001.]
We need a Homelands Defense Program. While we strive to recover and overcome this attack on the very things that make America great, we need to remember a few facts:
These terrorists have been in the country for years, preparing and training, waiting for their activation orders. FBI estimates indicate that over 50 people in the USA were involved in JUST this incident. With our basically unsecured borders (anyone who thinks that our borders are secured is only fooling himself), there may as well be 500 or even 5000 terrorists in the USA waiting activation orders.
Targets for terrorists abound in America. Fast-food restaurants, schoolyards, subways and trains, buses, terminals, and other public venues all represent killing grounds for bombers, hijackers, snipers, machine-gunners, and other criminals.
Terrorists can also use chemical and biological weapons here in the USA if they exercise the operational control and discipline to achieve their goals, which they have already proved their capability on Tuesday the 11th. The plane crashes represent only one form of a "poor man's weapon of mass destruction".
The only thing a terrorist understands is a BULLET TO THE HEAD. You cannot negotiate with a dedicated terrorist; they do not value their own life let alone yours, and they would just assume take out as many people as they can before someone thwarts their schemes.
With these things in mind, the need and appropriateness for well-regulated voluteer citizen militias and for all law-abiding Americans to be armed is apparent. Americans MUST be always prepared to defend themselves, and that means not only a mindset of survival, but the tools of defense. With all our troops overseas, and with police busy with routine duties, the first responder in a terrorist incident is the citizen. This is not an appeal for vigilantism, or to condone the taking of the law into private hands. This is a common-sense precaution for a country that has been invaded by an invisible enemy.
Ironically, our Founding Fathers envisioned over 200 years ago that ALL citizens who are peaceable should carry arms for self-defense and the defense of their state. The "militia" as they believed was the WHOLE people. This is the way of things in Switzerland, whose national traditions of neutrality and citizen-soldiers has made this one of the least-invaded, lowest-crime, most free nations in the world.
People in America have abandoned their personal responsibilities to their nation for far too long. We should all each be involved in our government, our defense, and our communities. We have an opporunity to undo our errors, let's not fail our fellow citizens again.
Specifically, I believe that CQB, firearms, NBC, and First Aid are some good places to start training. If a terrorist boards a train or bus and a militiaman is on it, he should be prepared to combat that terrorist, but only excellent marksmanship and specific antiterrorism skills will enable a favorable resolution.
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Additional note: Every state needs a well-organized citizens volunteer militia and a fully-developed defense program to meet their needs. Congressman Lawrence McDonald was President of the Western Goals Foundation, which published the "Swiss Report". The report's findings: return America to the citizen-militia system that we created and was soon adopted by Switzerland.
