The Return of Civil Defense?
The Bush administration is moving in the right direction. It needs to go a whole lot further.
by Rod D. Martin
February 27, 2003
Tom Ridge’s high-profile launch this week of Ready.gov, the Homeland Security Department’s online counterpart to its much-publicized ad campaign, represents a significant shift in government thinking on how to prepare for terrorism.
The question, though, remains: Will that shift ultimately encompass real civil defense?
Unlike most government action to date, which has focused heavily on top-down actions to thwart terrorists, Ready.gov is all about you: how will you plan for a disaster, how will you “duck-and-cover” in the event of a nuclear attack, and so forth. It has links to Red Cross training, FEMA disaster preparedness manuals, and sections devoted to making an emergency kit, developing a family emergency plan, and surviving a dirty bomb.
All of this is excellent, both practically and philosophically: government cannot protect every American from every contingency, and ought to empower them to defend themselves at need (this is, after all, the pur…