It's our own responsibility to be informed.

The Counter Terrorism Blog has a great piece written by Walid Phares and Behrooz Bahbudi that tells us it is our responsibility as individuals to educate ourselves on the threats to our civilization as represented by "Jihadism". That's one of the major problems we face as I said yesterday:

Many (most) Americans don't take time out of their prime time t.v. to actively seek out what is going on in the world beyond what they see in an hour of news every day. By and large, we trust in our politicians and military to track world events for us and keep us in our cozy (and oblivious) lives. We trust the media to deliver the news relevent to our lives and leave it at that.

Alphabet soup news alone doesn't cut it.
On the Axis of Jihadism

Because for 11 years years, the American public wasn’t informed about the threat that lead to September 11 and because the classrooms and newsrooms of the United States were not educated enough about the global threat of “Jihadism,” we feel it is incumbent on individual citizens to educate themselves about this danger and mobilize to prevent a Future Jihad looming around the world and at home. It is important that American citizens understand who the “Jihadists” are, what they want to achieve, and how they are proceeding. Without this knowledge, the American public will be unable to be part of the political debate about national security and the War on Terror. And if deprived from the support of an informed public, the US Government, now and in the future, cannot sustain difficult decisions pertaining to the defeat of the Terrorist enemy.

By Walid Phares and Behrooz Bahbudi
Read the rest here: On The Axis of Jihadism

In these times, the more informed you are, the better prepared you will be in the event of a crisis. Here are some sites that offer free news letters to help you keep informed. It is incumbant upon each of us to get our own news...

The Cato Institute
Homeland Security Institute
Council on Foreign Relations
The Brookings Institution
The Power and Interest News Report