Then consider this interesting little tidbit Joe Bob Briggs has brought to our attention:

“In his new book “A Pretext for War,” best-selling investigative journalist James Bamford points out that during the ten years the National Security Agency was monitoring Al Qaeda, they refused to assign any covert agents to penetrate the organization because it was considered impossible. “That’s tribal stuff,” said one official. John Walker Lindh, on the other hand, simply learned Arabic, studied at a madrassa in Pakistan, told his imam he wanted to fight in Afghanistan, and within a matter of weeks was trucked to a training camp where he had contact with terrorist organizers and, on several occasions, Osama bin Laden himself. After he was arrested, he told the U.S. authorities of his knowledge of dozens of terrorist plans. Of course, John Walker Lindh was a weenie from Marin County–how could any CIA operative expect to compete with that?”

Also consider that three years after September 11, the government is still unable to protect the majority of airplanes and airplane passengers from terrorists yet it continues to do everything it can to deny pilots the ability to carry firearms and thus defend themselves and their passengers.

To paraphrase Chief Wiggum, the government can’t help you, but it can hurt you, and it can make sure you can’t help yourself.