Danger from the North?

Does this mean we need to start building a fence on our northern border? According to the Washington Times editorial “Danger form the North”…”Canada in per capita terms” …“takes in double the number of immigrants and three to four times the number of refugees as the United States. Moreover…Canada is unable to effectively screen and integrate these immigrants, with approximately 90 percent of applicants from Afghanistan and Pakistan being insufficiently vetted for security purposes.” “Saudi money [from us buying their oil] and radical clerics that have helped turn Canada into a home of radicals who fought in such places as Chechnya, Afganistan and Bosnia. In total, according to Canadian intelligence, there are more than 350 jihadists and 50 terrorist groups with a presence in Canada.” Them’s some important numbers to consider.

When do we start construction? So how long is the Canadian border? And, what federal programs will Congress cut to fund this project? Perhaps we could just go deeper into debt… to the Chinese.

At this point it’s useful to remember Osama’s two primary goals in his war against us. Break us economically and divide us politically (it worked against the Soviets in Afghanistan.) Fences both cost and divide. Ultimately, they are also ineffective. Where there’s a will, there’s a way…to go over, under, around and through them. With over 30,000 innocent Iraqi’s killed (approximately half as collateral damage by coalition forces and the other half intentionally murdered by insurgents and terrorists in an effort to thwart our occupation forces, I’d say there will be plenty of ‘will’ to murder Americans for quite some time.

Joe Black’s rant about the 3 layers of our Mexico border defenses was quite telling. ‘One layer of reinforced concrete. One layer of barbwire. And, one layer of dust…stirred up by all the illegals walking around the fence.’

After our land borders are sealed we’ll need coastal barriers. These will work as well as the New Orleans levies when the real immigration shit storm like a pandemic bird flu hits the fan. What about stopping tunnelers, small air craft and catapults? Remind me, how much will all this cost? What if terrorists decides to use birds to deliver a deadly bioterrorist concoction? When West Nile virus first hit the east coast of the US some intelligence analysts thought it might be Saddam field testing an avian bioweapons delivery system (wrong again! But not an ineffective possibility. SEE Bird Flu)

What would a bullet/missile proof bubble dome over the entire US cost? (Heck with Hawaii and Alaska)

Preemption (see Iraq) only makes matters worse. Unilateralism (see Kyoto treaty, ICC, CTBT, Convention on the Rights of the Child, CEDAW…) only makes others dislike us more. Perhaps we can try prevention.

Someone famous once said “You can always count on the government doing the right thing…but only after exhausting every other possibility.” I might add “at least twice”.

What has been our Governments response to the 9-11 Commission’s report? About the same response they gave the Hart-Ruddman Commission that 6 months before 9-11 said Americans should prepare to die in large numbers on American soil. Not much to virtually nothing.

Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (or committee chairs on the ship of state) isn’t going to protect us from (let alone prevent any) icebergs. The answer can be found in doing the math. For every innocent Iraqi that dies as a result of collateral damage…we piss of at least one Iraqi family and one Iraqi religion.

Is the war on terrorism winnable? The answer is a resounding YES!!! But not by us. Osama can beat us senseless from a cave…just by scaring us.

When will American’s ever learn. War is not the answer. It only sets the stage for the next war. This isn’t a good idea in a Cyber/Bio/Nano era populated by Pleistocene minds. Perhaps building effective international institutions committed to justice and the protection of human rights through enforceable laws would be better than building fences.