What can be done. (The Last Word).

The September 11th attacks showed how vulnerable America has become to terrorism and how urgent it is to revamp our national security. Over the past three decades, our nation's multi-layered system of internal security has been dangerously eroded by subversives bent on destroying our critical defenses. One after another, America's investigative bodies and internal security assets were weakened, shackled, or terminated altogether.

The following list of terminated security entities gives some idea of how greatly the subversives campaign has succeeded: the Subversive Activities Control Board; the Internal Security Division of the Justice Department; the House Internal Security Committee; the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee; the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations; the investigative committees of most state legislatures; the intelligence units of most state police agencies.

The intelligence units of most metropolitan police departments have also been terminated, or redirected away from keeping information on the subversive groups and individuals who support terrorist groups. In addition, other key components of our national security have been emasculated or diverted from what should be their primary objectives. The Immigration and Naturalization Service and Border Patrol, for instance, despite recent augmentation, remain overwhelmed and undermanned. They are also severely restricted in ways that prevent them from enforcing our borders and immigration laws. The FBI has been for many years largely restricted from investigating left-wing subversion and terrorism, and reoriented toward investigating "white collar" crime and a huge new federal criminal code that usurps many of the police functions of state and local governments.

We have been left naked, without needed protection. As a result, our police and intelligence forces failed to detect and deter the terrorist acts of September 11th. This has led to the pendulum swinging back to the opposite extreme. In the wake of the attacks, the calls for giving Gestapo-like powers to the federal government have been deafening. Such measures, though, are neither constitutional nor necessary. What America must do instead is rebuild the constitutional, multilayered internal security structures at federal, state, and local levels. It is also essential that we end our self-defeating policy of foreign intervention, which engenders hatred toward the United States and guarantees a steady recruitment of terrorists to the ranks of those who want to destroy us.

We must abandon immediately and completely our suicidal "partnership" with state sponsors of terrorism. In the 1980s, terrorist experts such as former CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence Ray Cline, investigative reporter Claire Sterling, Congressman Larry McDonald, and Senator Jeremiah Denton pointed out a crucial but "politically incorrect" fact: There really are no significant stand-alone terrorists; all members of the Terror Club International received funding and direction from Russia, China, Cuba, and their subcontractors: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, et al. This is no less true today, and should be remembered when considering the so-called Islamic fundamentalist groups, which function as deniable assets for their state sponsors.

Representatives Larry McDonald, John Ashbrook, and some of their House colleagues carried out a valiant campaign in the 1970s and 1980s to rebuild our internal security. Their campaign included efforts to reform our immigration laws and pass legislation to reestablish the House Internal Security Committee (HISC). Because of its power of subpoena and ability to publish reports, the HISC had been an essential weapon in the battle for national security and survival. It could compel the production of documents and witnesses and make vital information available to the public. A restored and vigilant HISC would be a valid solution today.

Other measures that would strengthen national security include:

* Correcting immigration policies that make it virtually impossible to deport "legal" terrorists.

* Providing sufficient manpower and funding to protect our borders.

* Instituting full top-down security checks of all U.S. military and security personnel, arid all cabinet officials.

* Reestablishing credible security measures at our weapons laboratories and military installations.

* Reversing the federal takeover of local law enforcement.

* Reestablishing intelligence units in city police departments.

* Reversing the FBI and CIA alliances with the police-state organizations of Russia, China, and other totalitarian regimes.

* Reestablishing investigative committees of state legislatures.

* Getting out of the United Nations, a Trojan Horse on American soil for terrorists and other foreign enemies.

Like the people of Troy, we have foolishly opened our gates to the enemy. And our enemies -- foreign and domestic -- have surged in to advance their terrorist agendas against the United States. There is, however, still time to save our country, if American citizens throw themselves into this battle with all of the determination that these dire circumstances demand.