This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program originally aired on Feb. 23, 2023. To listen to the program, please click HERE.
Sam Rohrer:
Yesterday, former president Donald Trump visited the damaged area in Palestine, they say, but it’s Palestine, Ohio. I grew up close to that area and Trump appropriately called out Joe Biden, FEMA, and the Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in their conspicuous absence, he said, and I agree, in doing absolutely nothing to provide federal government assistance in this historic regional disaster.
Now, equally conspicuous under the current Biden regime and the controlled media for many years, is the silence on what appears, I’m going to put it there, appears to be more than normal food processing plant fires and subsequent destruction. Also, in that area, were energy related facility damage as well.
Now, if it weren’t enough, all of these things followed in the wake, now, these things I’m talking about like the food processing primarily in 2022, some in 2021, but they followed in the wake of what we’ve talked about so much really pre-planned, we know that, pre-planned COVID outbreak and then following nationwide lockdown of schools and small businesses. In that time, if you recall, all the while pumping billions and trillions of dollars into selected big business locations, which were allowed to stay open during that time.
Now, in such times as these, it is easy to consider that such events are not accidental. Indeed, potentially planned. Tom would say, perhaps with a sinister strategy to weaken America and to force people to a point of desperation and anxiety. What I just said there, not my opinion, that’s what a lot of people think and a lot of you who are listening think. The question is there a story behind the story and what conclusions can we draw and what lessons are to be learned?
Now, that’s the subject I’ve decided to undertake today here on this Thursday edition of Stand in the Gap Today. The title I’ve chosen for today is this, Lessons We Must Learn from Train Derailments and Fires. I put in arson fires, but I think we’ll see. We’ll talk about that.
Now, my expert guest whose expertise is in this area of national security is Kyle Shideler. He’s the director and senior analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, where he conducts research and analysis on domestic threats to the US homeland with an emphasis on the doctrines, which fuel terrorism and shape the variety, and I’m reading from his website, variety of kinetic and non-kinetic threats to America’s security.
Now, all of that in place right now. Welcome to the program, Kyle Shideler. Kyle, thanks for being back with me.
Kyle Shideler:
Well, thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here.
Sam Rohrer:
Before we get into a closer look into these two areas, the derailments in the food processing plants in the next two segments, some of the events occurring in our nation, Kyle, which are at best out of the ordinary, and we look at that. Let me ask you this, could you share just a bit about your specific focus at the Center for Security Policy and the types of research that you conduct on matters, again, this is your focus, matters of domestic threats to the US mainland and for the intended use of this research. When you do this, for what purpose are you doing this research? Little bit of background please.
Kyle Shideler:
Sure. The Center for Security Policy is a national security education organization. We emphasize promoting national security policies that protect the nation while remaining faithful to the country’s founding principle. When it comes to homeland security, our focus is primarily threats that target Americans here at home, both foreign and domestics. This includes counterterrorism, counterintelligence, border security, as well as protection of critical infrastructure, which I know we’re going to talk about today.
As part of our effort, we educate lawmakers about potential policy and legislative solutions to problems. We provide no cost training to local and state law enforcement agencies and emergency management personnel. We research and write to educate the general public so that they can be informed citizens about the kinds of threats we face.
When we look at threats, the center has long believed that to understand an opponent’s ideology, that is to say, what does the enemy believe about the world helps you predict what they will do and how and when they will do it. That’s why we focus on ideology is to give us the ability to understand what the enemy will do and when and where he will do it.
I focus on trying to understand those groups and ideologies, which are a threat to the founding principles of the country, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and our other founding documents. In my view, the two primarily most significant threats from that lens are Marxist and anarchist threats like Antifa and related organizations as well as Jihadist threats.
Historically, the US has always faced a challenge from left wing domestic terrorism going all the way back to the anarchist wave in the late 19th and early 20th century. Then, of course, you have new left terrorism with the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army in the 1960s and ’70s all the way to today’s Antifa. It’s a long-running historical threat that has always had an impact on the nation. Then, of course, talking about Jihadist threats, everybody is well aware of 911 and the global threat that represented.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay. All right. I think that is excellent. Marxist theology, you identified that. You did not mention, but I think probably included in there, you’ve got Communist China who is now in there as well. Do you put them in the category of Marxist? They’re certainly not Islamic. Do you put them as a separate category or that you put them in the Marxist basket?
Kyle Shideler:
Sure, I mean, I was talking primarily about domestic threats, but certainly you have to have an awareness that Communist China is an adversary that they have a very explicit statement of doctrine that they view themselves as in conflict with the United States. They are certainly willing to support domestic actors where that is possible in order to further subvert or undermine our defenses.
Yeah, we absolutely have to keep in mind that when we’re talking about some of these domestic threats, there are foreign actors that are either looking to supplement those threats or take advantage of the disruption, the domestic threats cause, all enemies foreign and domestic.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, let me follow up with that then in this regard, the ideology, you mentioned Marxist, you got the communist ideology, you have Islamic ideology, but don’t all three of those ideologies have behind, which is the reason I brought up China, don’t they have actual countries behind them that are helping to fuel or fund what perhaps is taking place here or as you look at national security like this, are you saying foreign countries are not necessarily always involved with what could be potential domestic terrorism?
Kyle Shideler:
Well, I think we should understand that we do have domestic threats that represent ideologies that grew up domestically, even where they have some influence from foreign actors. For example, the new left terrorism of the 1950s and ’70s with the Weather Underground and the identity extremism of groups like the Black Panther Party, they fed off of foreign actors.
Sam Rohrer:
All right, we’re going to have to break away there, Kyle. Ladies and gentlemen, my guest here today is Kyle Shideler, director and senior analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy. Our theme is lessons we must learn from train derailments and arson fires. We’re going to go into further detail when we come back.
Sam Rohrer:
From January to April of 2022, now, that’s a year ago. I want you to think on that as we move forward into this. From January to April of 2022, there were 16 major industrial fires across America. Now, while that is not a statistical anomaly by itself, that doesn’t really jump out. The fact though that these 16 fires were all involving major food processing plants, that does raise a red flag. Now, this was a year ago.
The fact that these events here in the US were also accompanied by similar unusual fires in food processing plants around the world at the same time raises the red flag higher. When combined during that period of time, the incessant warnings from the United Nations, you recall this and Joe Biden all talking about looming food shortages. Remember that? That was being threatened and augmented by the then beginning war in Ukraine. Remember all this? It’s not hard for the logical and the thinking person to say, “Hmm, is there not more to the story when you have these three things happening together?”
Now, while the controlled media saw nothing to comment about all of these things, but alternative media did including a commentary by Tucker Carlson on Fox News on April 26th of 2022, it does raise another issue, but I put this together because I’m going to ask Kyle to give some comment on this event, the food processing plant issues of a year ago, and then we’re going to move in the train derailments and all that, which is very on the front page news in the next segment. Tim, if you would play this. It’s quite a three-minute clip. Listen to this is Tucker Carlson talking with an individual in the press from Washington State.
Tucker Carlson:
Just moments before we went to air tonight, a plane apparently crashed at a General Mills plant, a food plant in Covington, Georgia. Six tractor trailers were reportedly on fire. You’re seeing pictures from the scene right now. This is the second time in a week that something like this has happened. On April 14th, a plane crashed into the Gem State processing in East Idaho. What’s going on here?
Well, this story gets weirder. Food processing plants all over the country seem to be catching fire. A couple of days ago a fire destroyed the headquarters of Azure Standard, one of the largest organic food distributors in the country. At the end of last month, a fire severely damaged to fresh onion packing facility in South Texas. In Oregon, a potato chip processing plant just reported a boiler explosion that sent workers to the hospital. Here’s a news report on that.
Speaker 4:
Eastern Oregon where crews are battling a major fire at a potato chip processing plant. Air 12 flew over the scene at Shearer’s Foods on Highway 207 in Hermiston. We’re told the fire was caused by an explosion of a portable boiler there. Two people were taken to the hospital.
Tucker Carlson:
Industrial accidents happen, of course, but this is a lot of industrial accidents at food processing facilities. At the same time, the president’s warning us about food shortages. They’re going to hit by planes and catching fire. What is going on here exactly? Jason Rantz, host radio show in Seattle and joins us to put it into perspective. Jason, good to see you.
Jason Rantz:
Good to see you. Obviously, when something happens every so often, you obviously hope that there’s no significant damage and certainly no one gets hurt, but you kind of write it off. It’s not that big of a deal. Accidents happen, but when you’ve got well over a dozen food processing plants and warehouses getting destroyed or seriously damaged over just the last few weeks, at a time when the food supply is already vulnerable, it’s obviously suspicious and it could lead to serious food shortages.
That’s why some folks are now wondering, well number one, what’s going on? You’ve got some people speculating that this might be an intentional way to disrupt the food supply. Not only do we have this [inaudible 00:12:00]-
Tucker Carlson:
Wait, may I ask you to pause there really quick? Can I just ask you, I just want to nail this down so our viewers understand, there have been confirmed over a dozen disabling accidents at food plants in the last month, over a dozen.
Jason Rantz:
Absolutely. We’re talking about some really significant plants. The Taylor Farms facility in Salinas, California was completely destroyed by a fire last week. We’ve had two major potato processing plants in Belfast, Maine and Warden Washington that were completely gutted, which is happening at a time where we already have a potato shortage globally. You were talking about the onion supply at that Rio Fresh, but it’s not just produce plants.
Last month, there was a fire that took out a Nestle food plant out in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and that’s impacting frozen food brands like Hot Pockets or Stouffer’s, which maybe you might buy if you can’t get fresh food from a warehouse that just exploded. That Shearer’s food facility you just mentioned in the open, I mean, that’s the only west coast facility that they operate. There is some significant concern, of course, that this is going to impact the supply chain.
Now, to be clear, the timing is very suspicious. It’s obviously concerning. Police are saying that these fires are due to faulty issues with equipment. They’re not saying that this was intentional.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, Kyle, you heard the clip that’s rather long, but I thought it was valuable to play it because it came to the attention of normal people saying, “Wow.” I’d like you to do this, your comment on that, but from your perspective as a person focusing on national security and things happening of this type, what red flags, if any, does this raise to you and how would you evaluate these circumstances in light of the way it was covered in that clip back in April of 2022?
Kyle Shideler:
Well, I think one of the things that highlights for me is that we need to remember that the food and agriculture sector is one of the nation’s 16 critical infrastructure sectors. People, remember Napoleon said, “An army marches on its stomach.” Well, that’s true for a whole country as well. Our opponents know that. If you look at doctrine from the Chinese Communist Party for example, they look at all of these critical infrastructure sectors, but especially food as a potential target.
We know that, for example, malware attacks against the food and agricultural sector have risen dramatically in recent years. I think 300% was one figure. It is simply a fact that this is a vulnerability that we have and we know that we have opponents who have the capability and the willingness and the stated intention of targeting that vulnerability at the time and place of their choosing.
The other thing to remember is part of the reason we are feeling this crunch right now, and people are noticing these incidents, which statistically, are not necessarily out of the average, but the reason we’re feeling it so so much is because so much of our economy and our food sector is based on just in time logistics, such that any disruption, whether it’s natural disaster, cyberattack, industrial accident or regulatory policy manipulation, all of those things create very broad and very lasting disruptions across the whole country, especially because it’s coming on the top of the two years of COVID lockdowns that we just got through.
We are rolling from disruption to disruption to disruption in a very complex and very limited system. It’s not a system that has a lot of resilience built into it. It’s not a system that has a lot of protections built into it. Even if any particular incident like a fire or an explosion at one of these plants, even if those incidents are not malicious, they are still going to be dramatically felt by the public.
If you are a government official, you need to be thinking not just, “Oh, well these are all normal events. I don’t have to worry about them.” You need to be thinking this is a vulnerability we have as a country. How do I protect it, whether it’s from accidents or incompetence or malicious action.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, and I’m going to ask you in the last segment, actually give some counsel to those who would be in office, those who should be in the position of evaluating and so forth, but through your analytical mind and all of our listeners right now are saying, we hope and we pray that there are people in positions of government who are actually doing what I think a normal person would do and look and say, “All right, what are our vulnerabilities?” Build in those firewalls and make sure that things are in fact there.
Now, in this case, as you say, let me ask you what goes through your mind, the fact that there are fires and food processing plants at a time, so many at one point, right in the middle of time when the United Nations and Joe Biden are talking about food shortages, to an average person, to me anyways, that says, “Hmm, okay.”
Now, the fact that you had some small planes, I think there were actually two or three small planes in that time that happen to fly right into and crash into food processing plants and start fires, seems a little bit odd to me. How do you and how does and should a person considering national security consider these types of things? Are there dots to be connected? Are there red flags that automatically go up? If there are, who ought to be checking, investigating, and considering?
Kyle Shideler:
Right. I mean, you have a responsibility if you are in the national security space as a federal official to sort of assume and prepare for the worst, as they say, in the military, the enemy’s most dangerous course of action. When I see sets of events, I do not automatically assume that it is a coincidence and try to find the reasons to prove that it is in fact a coincidence.
Now, it may be a coincidence, but my default position should be, I am going to get to the bottom of this. I’m going to figure out if it is an attack. If so, I’m going to attribute it to an actor. If it’s not an attack, I’m going to say, is this a vulnerability that a malicious actor could use in the future to replicate similar events? If it’s a boiler explosion or something like that, maybe it’s the case that it was an accident this time, but I want to say, “Okay, was that boiler attached to the internet? Does it have proper industrial control system protections on it?” Those kinds of things.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, Kyle, I’m going to step in. What you’re doing there is exactly what I was hoping you’re going to do. Ladies and gentlemen, a person in a position of, well, public policy or law enforcement, need to ask questions, not to assume that things just happen, but ask questions to determine. That’s what someone needs to do. When we come back, we’re going to move to the area of train derailments, these Palestine event.
Sam Rohrer:
My theme for today in the focus is this, lessons we must learn from train, derailments and fires. Now, my guest is appropriate for this consideration. He’s Kyle Shideler, director and senior analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy. They have a website at centerforsecuritypolicy.org. If you’re just joining us, you can go back and listen to beginning of the program where Kyle introduces what he does and why he does it in his capacity there.
I am just pursuing these two areas as an example of how those in positions of national security and those in positions of responsible government oversight, federal government, state gov, local government, should in fact, be observing events, asking questions, all of that in connecting the dots to whether or not the kinds of things that we see that results in harm, damage, destruction of property, however that may be, to see what, if anything, can and should be done about it. I’ve just chosen these two areas.
There are more areas that are potential areas of terrorists or other areas of attack. We went over that at the beginning of the program. If you’re joining us, go back and listen to that again.
Now, in the last segment we talked about food processing plants and go back and listen to the clip that played from a year ago because that issue came up in a big way about a year ago and then seems to have somewhat fallen off, but now, because of this event here in East Palestine, Ohio with the train derailment, it brings up another area. We’re linking this. I just used these two as examples of.
Now, looking at train derailments, when it comes to the matter of train derailments, according to the US National Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there have been, now get this, 54,539 train derailments between 1990, which is when they first started tracking these, okay? That’s why they start 1990, but between 1990 and 2021. That’s an average of just delivers 1,700 per year, which is a lot, really.
In 2022, here’s an interesting statistic, there were approximately 535 million miles covered by freight trains and by all benchmarks, railways are the safest, most efficient, and most effective way to move goods. Rail is here to stay. Nobody’s talking about getting rid of rails, but however, the derailment of the 150 car Norfolk and Southern train in East Palestine, as they’re saying, Palestine, Ohio on February 3rd resulting in the decision to burn off what didn’t leak into the ground in the waterways of Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, a reported 1.1 million, 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride was involved there. They burned that off.
What makes this derailment fall into the unusual category, I’ll call it, it’s not necessarily the derailment, because there are plenty of derailments, but it’s perhaps in how the aftermath of that derailment was handled or even to this day, being handled.
Kyle, shifting from the food processing plants, what you just talked about from your perspective and analysis, have you looked into the number of derailments, which have occurred say in the past few years that have been suspicious to your knowledge? I just gave some numbers there, but do these types of incidents and like what happened here in Ohio, is there anything about that in and of themself raises suspicion or a reason to give further thorough investigation?
Kyle Shideler:
Well, pastor, as you noted, the number of train derailments each year is much higher than the average American probably expects actually works out to be about three a day. That’s certainly concerning in and of itself, but if I put on my thinking cap as an adversary of the United States, if I try to put myself in the perspective of somebody who wishes to do harm, that is a large sea in which to swim.
There is a lot of damage one could do without rising above the level that would necessarily be statistically noticeable, for example. We know that there are domestic opponents, particularly left-wing ecoactivists and anarchists who possess the capability and the desire to target railways.
There was a case in the Pacific Northwest where over 41 separate sabotage attempts were conducted, including one which led to a very serious derailment. The FBI did eventually find and get convictions for the two anarchists responsible, and they received respectively six months and one year per sentences.
We know that the targeted sabotage of railway is a real threat because as you noted, it’s the only way or it’s the only really practical and economical way to transport certain things, especially vital things, things like chemicals, things like food products, and things necessary for agriculture, fertilizer, other things that have serious hazmat capabilities or responsibilities, for example. Railway is really the way to go, and it creates an economic and infrastructure vulnerability that we know we have opponents that seek to target that.
If you have an incident, a critical incident like this, your first response can’t be, “Well, this is just another derailment.” It has to be, “Is this the derailment that was caused by some malicious actor? We need to get to the bottom of figuring out whether that’s the case or not. It may not be the case, in which case, again, as I said in the previous segment, your thinking goes to how do we prevent the next one if it were to be a malicious actor?
Sam Rohrer:
All right. You-
Kyle Shideler:
I’ve seen little evidence that they’re doing that.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, you’re asking questions there, and particularly when there are derailments that have nothing in them, empty cars or something like that, that doesn’t rise to anybody’s level of major concern, but when there is something that does potentially impact like this circumstance in Ohio, then would not you say that deserves the kind of inspection to say, “Hmm, all right.”
Now, in this case, let me ask you this question here, to me, as a former legislator, I’m putting that hat on, I’m looking at it, and even today right here in Pennsylvania, there are hearings taking place here in Pennsylvania, in our Pennsylvania Senate on this matter of this derailment because there were impacts in Western Pennsylvania as a result. It’s happening right now.
I’m covering this because it is a current thing, but when that happened on February 3rd, even to this very moment, there was almost complete silence from the federal government. As far as I know, EPA didn’t weigh in. FEMA was not there. That was the point of what Donald Trump was talking about yesterday. Where are these guys? They didn’t say anything.
Norfolk and Southern were the ones that appeared to make the decision to take and burn off these chemicals, which put a gigantic mushroom cloud into the air. People have seen those pictures with chemicals on the ground. I’ve seen JD Vance, the US Senator from Ohio actually take a stick in a creek right close to it. Water appeared to be fine. He moved the stick in the water and it automatically became just clouded over with what its appearance of oil next to that water came out of that ground. It’s saturated.
Now, the EPA is saying, “Well, we’re going to get involved.” Almost to me, like they’re threatening Norfolk and Southern, but they stayed out of it altogether. Now, in your estimation, does that raise a question that the legislators and government of people should be thinking about?
Kyle Shideler:
Well, I mean, I think it is certainly reasonable that the people of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio are frustrated. That is probably a very polite way to put it at the level of focus from the federal government and the level of attention that the Biden administration has given this threat. I mean, I don’t know in any particular case what the right, I’m not a hazmat expert, so I don’t know what the right move was in terms of how to respond to some of these chemicals, but all too often, we are reliant upon people who claim to be experts in far away Washington that tell you to do X, Y, and Z, and they are not the ones that have to feel the effect of it.
We have that kind of bureaucratic layer between the person who makes the decision and the person who suffers the consequences of that decision. You get all kinds of bad outcomes. I mean, we’ve seen this throughout the decades of history. It happens again and again and again that people far away in positions of power think that they can make decisions for other people and it doesn’t turn out well.
Sam Rohrer:
You are actually kind of walking into, Kyle, I think what I’m going to ask you in the next segment, and that is this, who ultimately needs to be thinking about emergency response? The tendency is we look to Washington, but as you said, they’re a long way off. They’re out of touch with reality as we most all know. The result is when things occur that demand a quick response, all right, ladies and gentlemen, what should be the result?
Well, I’m going to ask Kyle here in just a little bit, what lessons we can learn, just taking these two examples, food processing plant that are being burned and train derailments where there are things on it that are potentially hazardous or are hazardous, all right? What should be the lesson here for government officials and for those who have a responsibility to protect people’s property and their lives, and what should citizens, you and I do, when in fact government has proven themselves to not be on top of things? We’ll cover that when we get back in just a minute.
Sam Rohrer:
Well, in normal days, let me put it this way, in normal days, moral truth is the determiner of right actions, in normal days. Not just individual right actions, but just government policies, not just government policies, but just as in justice, right? Just government policies in normal days, but in normal days, government officials elected or appointed, local, state or federal, all should observe basic, moral and constitutional duties to protect what?
Well, what they are supposed to protect, citizens’ private property rights, and citizens’ physical lives in the context of fully transparent information and informed consent. Now, what I just said there is a mouthful, but it really is the heart of what is just government. It is at the heart of what all of us who fear God and love freedom, expect to be the case.
Now, in normal days, in America passed government policies, and those in government were prosecuted for actions which violated their constitutional oath at one point in time, ladies and gentlemen, the constitutional oath, I’ve taken it nine times when I was in office. It was binding. Those who took it actually felt constrained because they were generally more honest to actually uphold their oath.
For those who were really concerned about their constitutional oath, they, I’m going to say, were even more obligated because they made the oath before God. They were morally obligated to keep their promises. When they didn’t, there were things in place that caused them to be investigated. If they were in violation of those things, they went to jail. They certainly went to jail when they were involved in bribery or corruption or clear acts of commission in carrying out the law or perhaps acts of omission for failing to execute their duties in office.
You see, we’re clearly not in normal days. Law, duty, oaths of office, fear of God, truthful journalistic reporting or justice, we don’t see that very much today, do we? It’s almost like we can’t expect it with the current people who are there. Here is the question and the reason for covering this whole issue today, in such days in which we live, what lessons can we learn from such events as these unexplained fires in food processing plants, we just looked at as an example, train derailments as an example, but we have much broader area, unidentified flying balloons flying overhead or cyberhacking of all types, or other such dangerous and potentially criminal and terrorist actions. I’m putting them all of this in a bucket here together. What do we do?
Kyle, as I said earlier, I’m going to ask you here, start here please, because you said at the beginning the reason you do research and publish papers and all of that, it’s partially to inform the public, but it’s partially also to inform those in positions of government, those who have the obligation and the authority to actually do something to protect people and their property. What should these people in office, elected or unelected positions, learn from what we just laid on the table here today?
Kyle Shideler:
Well, I think the biggest problem we have in government today when it comes to these sorts of incidents is that they’ve moved to a mitigation approach to dealing with potential emergencies. FEMA does very little until an emergency occurs, and then when it does, its primary job is to start writing checks.
In the past, when things worked well, the government had a civil defense approach, and from you can hear from the name, the focus is on defense, find out what’s vulnerable and work to make it less vulnerable. If you are attacked or you do suffer an emergency, the focus is on resilience. In a boxing metaphor, can you take a punch and keep doing whatever it is that you are responsible for doing as an individual or a company or a government agency? We’ve gotten away from that.
As a result, when we face these disruptions, they go on longer than they ought to. We don’t have stockpiles and workarounds prepared to deal with these kinds of incidents and to reduce harm. This fundamentally calls for a different approach and its approach that takes into account that we have actual enemies who wish to do us harm, which by the way, you noted the constitutional oath that government officials take it. Right there in the oath, part of their responsibility is to know and to address those threats, those enemies that we do have in addition to the randomness of Mother Nature.
Sam Rohrer:
All right, going to leave it there. Go to the next one here and then I’ll come back and close here, but individuals. Now, for the serious citizen, our audience that’s listening are serious citizens. By and large, those who are listening are God-fearing. They are patriotic. They are people of integrity.
For the serious citizen who expects truthfulness from government officials and honest efforts to protect the lives of law-abiding citizens and properties and the health of citizens, but when we continue to witness a repeated failure to do so, either a postponement, a failure to observe warnings like you guys give, what then should citizens learn and do in response to, for instance, what we’re talking about now?
Kyle Shideler:
I think that the biggest challenge is a mental challenge, getting away from this idea of who is going to come and save me and moving to an idea of who am I prepared to go and save. From a civil defense approach that I talked about, the most important resource that any emergency manager has is that prepared and educated citizen.
I would ask your audience, do they know the name of their local county emergency manager? Have they ever talked to him? Have they ever asked him what he needs? They might think about joining their community emergency response team or urging their emergency manager to create one if one doesn’t exist, rather than waiting for Pete Buttigieg to show up in your town with his checkbook, think about what you can do to cooperate with your local authorities to find potential problems, create solutions, and to respond when incidents do occur.
Think broadly about capabilities. I’m sure you have listeners who are gardeners, who are, maybe they’re not working chainsaws or other kinds of search and rescue type things, but they run food pantries or they are involved in community kitchens or community supported agriculture. In a serious disruption, these sorts of capabilities are ones that any local government official needs to be thinking about as well.
Whatever it is that you do, it could be of value and you should think about it from that perspective. What do I know how to do that can be of value to my community? Do I know who in my local community I can share that with? Build a relationship with your local county emergency manager, with your local sheriff. Put yourself at their disposal or if you have concerns, express them because those are the people who when you have an emergency, they’re going to be the first responders, then the state, then if you’re very lucky, federal aid. That would be my recommendation to any citizen is to start thinking about what they personally can do to help their community be a little bit more resilient for some of these challenges.
Sam Rohrer:
Kyle Shideler, director and senior Analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Center for Security Policy. Thank you so much for being with me today. Here’s a website, it’s centerforsecuritypolicy.org. Thank you for your input today on the program. So helpful.
Lady and gentlemen, can I just reinforce what Kyle has said? These kinds of preparation, don’t wait on somebody down the road. Do your homework. Be informed. That’s why we try to bring the program. Trust in God to do and protect. Ultimately, he is our final protection, but make sure your families are intact. Make sure your church family reach out in your neighborhood. Reach your local officials. This is both common sense. It’s constitutional. It’s also biblical.
Do something. Don’t just wait around for someone else to come to your aid because they just may not. With that, I bid you ado. Thanks for being with us today on the program, and Lord willing, to see you back here tomorrow.
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