360 Degrees on the Attack

Before you say I'm brainwashed by the Liberal media and the power-hungry Left (aren't ALL political parties power-hungry?), I'd like to state categorically that I am a true conservative - what some would call a Reagan Republican in the true tradition of Goldwater (President Bush is neither a conservative nor a Republican in the truest since of the word). I believe in a strong defense, but a stronger state government and I believe in lasse fare {Laissez-faire if you are French language purist}. The term dates from around 1750 and means literally "allow to do" in which there is a presumption of minimal or no interference by government. In reference to laissez-faire capitalism, there has been few examples of this extant for at least one hundred years. But just as important, I am an American whose only political agenda is for the Constitution to be respected and the Bill of Rights to be followed.

Having said that, I have a beef with several U.S. policies but one critical one in particular: Bush's Immigration Message Undermines His Message on Terrorism.

The President is having a hard time selling to voters his War on Terror, despite endless repetitive speeches arguing that we must fight the terrorist enemy in Iraq or we will fight them here. This philosophy, of course was taken from U.S. Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz who carried the fight to the enemy in the Pacific during World War II.

Truly, the White House should not be surprised when polls reflect that this time the message has not taken hold. Why? In this past spring and summer, the U.S. public has become amply aware that Bush has no serious intent of securing our borders. Instead, the building evidence, including that derived from FOIA requests by this author and by Judicial Watch, is that Bush agreed to erase our borders at the trilateral U.S.-Mexico-Canada summit meeting in Waco, Tex., on March 23. Here the three leaders issued what amounts to a press release declaring that now we are in the “Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America.”

We have incontrovertible proof that terrorists have crossed our border with Mexico. On March 1, 2005, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani pleaded guilty to federal charges of using meetings at his home in Dearborn, Michigan, to raise money for Hezbollah’s terrorist activities in Lebanon. Kourani was an illegal alien who had been smuggled across our border with Mexico after the bribed a Mexican consular official in Beirut to get him a visa to travel to Mexico. Kourani and a Middle East traveling partner then paid smugglers in Mexico to get them into the United States. He established residence among the Lebanese expatriate community in Dearborn, Michigan, and began soliciting funds for Hezbollah terrorists back home. Kourani was sentenced to 54 months in federal prison.

In December 2002, Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, a café owner in Tijuana, was arrested for smuggling more than 200 Lebanese illegally into the United States, including several believed to have terrorists ties to Hezbollah. Operating the posh La Libanese Café in downtown Tijuana, Boughader held court in his restaurant under the sign of the Cedar tree, the national symbol of Lebanon.

In writing “Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders,” Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist wrote chapter 7, titled “Terrorists, Please Cross Here!” deploring the terrorism threat our open borders with Mexico and Canada present. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the May 2005 report, titled “Building a North American Community,” express what appears to be the goal of SPP -- namely, to defend only the perimeter border around North America while increasingly erasing our borders with Mexico and Canada by issuing in 2007 electronic Trusted Trader border passes to Canadian and Mexican trucks and other commercial entities and by issuing next year Trusted Traveler bio-metric cards to Mexican and Canadian citizens. How can North America be secure when the perimeter includes Mexico, a drug cartel-controlled corrupt state where any terrorist with money can buy their way in?

On October 4, Bush, in a scenic outdoor setting surrounded by Arizona mountains, signed a new homeland security spending bill that included $1.2 billion for building the 700-mile fence that Congress had overwhelmingly voted to build along our nearly 2,000 mile-long border with Mexico. Before the ink was even dry, Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) cautioned that there was no resolve by either Congress or the Bush Administration to follow through with sufficient appropriations to actually see that even this limited 700-mile fence would actually get built.

Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum has written insightfully about a Bush 2004 campaign video that gives insight into Bush’s evidently long-standing determination to pursue an open border and open immigration policy, especially with Mexico. According to Schlafly, the Bush campaign video, originally discovered by the Los Angeles Times, was “secretly mailed to Latino voters all over the country.”

We clearly need a revival of traditional conservative principles, which constitute the true empowerment agenda. We need to shake off our lethargy, reconnect with our American heritage, and fight for our culture and our country.

While we rightly focus much of our attention on Islamic terrorists and enemy states, we must not lose sight of what is happening here at home: the threats we face from an emboldened cultural left, from the global liberal elite, from science worshippers, and from politicians who spend more time on their hair than serving their constituents. We are already empowered to fearlessly expose the Left's assault on the family, showing how the American family is besieged by a hostile culture, destructive government policies, and by our own selfishness. Meanwhile, facilitated by a well-funded alliance of Latino and business lobbies, and by elites in both parties, illegals have crashed our borders in unprecedented numbers. Six years after September 11, this is a national disgrace. I'm not afraid to say that our national power and identity comes in part from our shared American culture and language - and that this power will continue to be eaten away if we don't stop the double-talk and defend our borders.

Walter