By Michelle Malkin
You know what makes me nervous about President Bush? It's not his facial expressions. Nor his verbal clumsiness. I don't care about his alleged weakness at the podium. What concerns me more than anything else is his demonstrated weakness at our borders.
Immigration enforcement is the six-ton elephant in the room. Barely two sentences were devoted to border control in the first presidential debate, despite the fact that the major issue of the showdown was leadership on national security. Both President Bush and Sen. Kerry bloviated about throwing more money at the Department of Homeland Security, while ignoring the fundamental problem: Our immigration laws are being broken en masse because America is unwilling to enforce them — clearly, consistently and unapologetically — until it is too late.
The vice presidential candidates are no better. Dick Cheney, alas, has dutifully defended the administration's abominable amnesty plan, which amounts to a mass government pardon of illegal visa overstayers and border crossers and deportation fugitives at a time of war. (We are at war, aren't we, gentlemen?) For his part, Sen. John Edwards supports the just-as-awful Democratic version of this illegal alien incentive policy.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/06/2004 3:25:58 AM ||
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#1
No one is going to antagonize the Latino vote this close to the election. Any moves to tighten our southern border won't come until after the election if then. The Democrats want open borders because every illegal is another absentee vote for them. You don't have to live in southern California to appreciate the magnitude of the influx of Mexicans into this country. You can see it in rural Indiana, in Iowa, in Georgia, just about everywhere but Hawaii and Alaska.
#2
It isn't just a question of borders that are easy to breach (although that is at the top of the list of concerns), it is a question of future US demographics (is one group favored over others, and what are the political consequences of those demographics), keeping the number of middle class Americans stable, and determining whether or not we will become a country with 2 official languages (which all citizens will be expected to speak) or a US whose citizens speak many languages but adhere to one common language-English-for communication in business, social institutions, and government.
#3
Falling birthrates among the native-born population and aging boomers both indicate our economic dependence on continued immigration. Without it we're facing the same catastrophe as the aging Europeans.
So if you don't care for mexican immigration, then you need to propose a substitute. My own proposal would be to allow anyone with an advanced degree in a hard science or engineering who passes a security test.
Fling the doors wide open to the world's best and brightest. Give us your brainiacs, yearning to be free (of bureaucracy, poor funding, lack of venture capital)....
#4
I am as open to Mexican immigration as I am to Nepalese, Australian, Brazilian, or any other group-I just don't favor one nationality over another. We are now under a kind of de facto affirmative action immigration policy that vastly favors Mexicans (to the detriment of others); I don't support preferential treatment for races or nationalities.
Yes, we are a country of immigrants and you make good points about aging boomers & native borns. That is why it is important to foster a good mix of immigrants. Each has somethign positive to bring.
#5
We should be increasing the number of well-educated Indian, Chinese and Korean immigrants by an order of magnitude at least. They are a huge plus to this nation. Silicon Valley (and increasingly Wall Street as well) would suffer immensely without them. Craig Barrett of Intel and every other tech CEO is warning of the huge danger we face if we do not increase immigration.
If our native-born kids were more keen on math and science, it wouldn't be a problem, but we still have technical jobs going begging in this country. Bring on the Asian scientists and technicians. And European ones, and latins, and scientists from any other region or nation.
#6
We are now under a kind of de facto affirmative action immigration policy that vastly favors Mexicans..
What's worse is that even among Mexican illegals, there's no evidence that we've got the best and the brightest. Seems to me that the intelligent individuals aren't stupid enough to try the illegal immigration route anyway..
#1
They are making it too complicated. All we have to do is catch bin Laden and everything will be fine.
Posted by: Rock ||
10/06/2004 12:32 Comments ||
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#2
"And President Bush, for his part, has so deeply committed the U.S. military in Iraq, and his administration has so badly fumbled the process of moving responsibility for Iraq security onto the shoulders of Iraqis, that it's hard to see how the U.S. military could, in the coming months or even year, have the manpower and resources needed to do more than strike some Iranian targets with air power if it had to."
Why? This really isn't all that difficult to figure out:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dilatush/iraq.html
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/06/2004 12:51 Comments ||
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#4
Plagiarize, promulgate and promote at will, Wuzzalib.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/06/2004 16:19 Comments ||
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#5
"And President Bush, for his part, has so deeply committed the U.S. military in Iraq, and his administration has so badly fumbled the process of moving responsibility for Iraq security onto the shoulders of Iraqis, that it's hard to see how the U.S. military could, in the coming months or even year, have the manpower and resources needed to do more than strike some Iranian targets with air power if it had to." Oh, and how far along in the Korean Conflict were we in raising, equiping and training the Korean forces? Large numbers of untrained formations, suffering casualties which dwarf the American losses. Maybe we are treating the new iraqi volunteer like we treat our own spending the time and effort to train, train, train before being sent into the chaos of war.
As to available forces, just check the number of Regular Army and Marine maneuver battalions with leather on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan against the total available and that will tell you the available force package to do something with. Its up to the planners at Central Command to determine what they need and I suspect they are the ones with the intel and skill to know better than anyone else.
Posted by: Don ||
10/06/2004 18:04 Comments ||
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My wife would like to see us kick the United Nations out of the United States. I, for one, think it's a swell idea. What's more, I'm certain most New Yorkers feel the same. After all, for the past 58 years, the gang of scofflaws have taken advantage of their diplomatic immunity to be the worst kind of guests. Double-parking is the least of it. Probably the only people who would miss these expense-account spongers are the waiters and maitre 'd's at the more expensive Manhattan eateries.
My own reason for wanting the United Nations padlocked is because I object to corruption and hypocrisy being passed off as high-mindedness. I understand that Kofi Annan — which sounds like a 12-step program for caffeine addicts — collected a nice piece of change out of Iraq's phony oil-for-food program. But my problem with the organization is more basic than that, although it does explain how it is that Mr. Annan seems to have a more extensive, more expensive, wardrobe than Donald Trump. People such as John Kerry are always eager to get the United Nation's good housekeeping seal of approval before America makes a foreign policy decision. Or at least Kerry and company do when there's a Republican in the White House. I don't seem to recall it's having been quite so imperative when Clinton and Lewinsky were holding down the Oval Office.
Be that as it may, what nation in its right mind would surrender even a scintilla of its sovereignty to a group as loathsome as the member states of the United Nations? I would sooner trust the Mafia to call the shots. You think I'm indulging in hyperbole? At least I have no reason to think that, for all their faults, the Costa Nostra hates America. I mean, consider that among the regimes having votes are the likes of Cuba, China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea to you), Laos, Cambodia, Rwanda, Myanmar, Sudan, Uganda and two dozen Muslim-dominated dictatorships running the gamut from Bahrain to Yemen. And that's not even counting France.
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Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/06/2004 12:55:31 PM ||
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#1
It's PAST time to evict the UN.
His last line sums it up perfectly. :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/06/2004 13:52 Comments ||
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#2
Put them in Jerusalem. Than they can oversee the world's number one hot spot.
#8
Kofi's kiddo Kojo Annan got in with the sanctions monitoring firm Cotecna. There is no mention of Kofi being directly bribed, though some current and former UN officials seemed to have done well for themselves. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/rosett200403101819.asp Cotecna was hired by the U.N. on December 31, 1998. Shortly afterward, press reports surfaced that Kojo was a partner in a private consulting firm doing work for Cotecna, and that just 13 months previously he had occupied a senior slot on Cotecna's own staff. Asked about this in 1999 by the London Telegraph, a U.N. spokesman, John Mills, replied that the U.N. had not been aware of the connection, and that "The tender by Cotecna was the lowest by a significant margin."
It seems there's a lot the U.N. managed not to be aware of. But the information that Cotecna â while employing Kofi's son in any capacity â put in the lowest bid by far for the job of authenticating Saddam's Oil-for-Food imports, is not necessarily reassuring. Cotecna, which got paid roughly $6 million for its services during that first year (the U.N. will not release figures on Cotecna's fees over the following years) was bidding on work that empowered its staff to inspect tens of billions worth of supplies inbound to a regime much interested in smuggling, and evidently accustomed to dealing in bribes and kickbacks as a routine part of business.
Posted by: ed ||
10/06/2004 19:05 Comments ||
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#9
Ed, your article has no evidence at all that Kofi Annan personally "collected a nice piece of change out of Iraq's phony oil-for-food program."
Your article says Kofi Annan's son Kojo worked on the staff of a Swiss firm, Cotecna, for a while, and then left that firm. Then, thirteen months later, Cotecna bid on a UN contract to supervise the food-for-oil program. Cotecna won the contract by offering the lowest bid.
By that time, Kojo Annan was a partner for a consulting firm that did business with Cotecna.
That's the entire "evidence". What am I missing?
Ponder this quote from the same article: It is possible of course, that Kojo Annan had nothing to do with the Iraq program per se, as he told the Telegraph back in 1999: "I would never play any role in anything that involves the United Nations for obvious reasons." Though at the same time, in a comment that suggested at least nodding acquaintance with the Oil-for-Food program, Kojo added: "The decision is made by the contracts committee, not by Kofi Annan.".
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/06/2004 23:01 Comments ||
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#10
The fact that Anna is doing everything in his power to obstruct the investigation, and the fact that his office - the Secty General of the U.N. was in charge of the program might tell you something.....
#1
"I'm going to suggest something a little more forthright. The US nuclear shield worked well for the non-nuclear states in NATO. The concept can work again.
I may be wrong but I thought we already had a missle sheild next to Iran, Oh yes, I remember now, it's called, Israel. Don't get me started on the Israeli Sampson clause.
#2
The author made one slight error in assuming that a US submarine-launched missile would be necessary. The Israelis have their own submarine launchable nuclear missiles, they don't need the US to retaliate.
New York Sun Staff Editorial
The warning issued by Prime Minister Sharon on Monday - that Israel is taking measures to protect itself from Iran - is the best news to come over the wires in weeks. This followed a statement, quoted last month in Maariv, from the prime minister's national security adviser, Giora Eiland, who said that Iran will reach the "point of no return" in its nuclear program by November. Zev Chafets, a former aide to another prime minister, Menachem Begin, noted in a recent column that "point of no return" was the same phrase that Begin used when he decided to launch, in 1981, a pre-emptive strike that destroyed the reactor at the center of Saddam's a-bomb program, Osirak. Begin's daring defense minister then was the same Ariel Sharon who is premier today.
This all comes in the context of an American presidential election in which neither the incumbent nor the challenger is offering a practical strategy for confronting Iran's ambitions to own an Abomb. It is true that both President Bush and Senator Kerry agreed at last week's presidential debate that the biggest threat America faces is the potential of terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. Neither dealt in any convincing way with the fact that the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, is bent on building nuclear weapons. While both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry say they oppose allowing Iran to get nuclear weapons, neither has been exactly forthright about their plan to prevent it.
Mr. Kerry's plan, such as he was able to articulate it, involves relying on the French and Germans, of all people, and then giving the Iranians some nuclear fuel. He takes Americans for fools. It's a wonder the senator didn't simply offer to make the mullahs a bomb. The mullahs themselves promptly reacted by mocking the senator, saying they don't want to have to rely on foreigners for their nuclear fuel. Mr. Bush's plan, as he was able to articulate it in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, involves saying, "All options are on the table, of course, in any situation. But diplomacy is the first option." The best that can be said about Mr. Bush is that he hasn't bought into the formal advice of appeasement being promulgated by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Continued on Page 49
#1
It would not be surprising to see, between now and November 2, Mr. Bush come under growing pressure to warn Israel against taking action.
Pressure from who? The Euro's, or the American left? They both have an axe to grind with the Israeli's.
I'm all for letting the Jews have their way with the Mullahs.
#5
God Bless Israel. Its really sad that a country so tiny has to do the work that the United States, a(alleged?) super-power, should be willing to do without hesitation.
#6
Any one for a few B2s? I assume there are still some of them in that little British island in the Indian ocean, sitting there minding their own business. Excellent deniability.
Posted by: Weird Al ||
10/06/2004 17:19 Comments ||
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#7
The Israeli ultra-leftists are just as wacko even being on the front lines of the counter war against the jihadic death cultists, which proves another idea concerning political power hungry Hillary, Kerry, Edwards, crowd. They are well aware of Iran, being the originators of the modern Islamic terrorist movement, thanks to one of Kerry's top foreign affairs advisors, Jimmy Carter, the same pencil neck geek which allowed the anti-Muslim fanatic Shah to be overthrown by the blood thirsty Khomeini Shi'ite street mobs and soon after instigate Hizballah terror in Lebanon's civil war plus and trained the terrorist metal case which murdered a horrific amount of U.S. Marines with a suicide car bombing into the Marine barracks.
Since a one world type Dem President Carter caused the Islamist nightmare in the first place, the one we now must confront, the Kerry bunch will never blame one of their heroes, instead they will somehow blame Bush and pull yet another failed 'allow the United Nations nuclear arms inspectors to 'do their jobs' (receive mounds of Iranian payoffs)
I firmly believe the Bush White House had the to the overall 'Iran doctrine', in other worlds, we, America & true allies have secured the old Soviet air bases on Iran's sandy eastern border. We, America and our loyal allies patrol the Persian Gulf and if required we can block every drop from every oil super tanker attempting to depart the Straight of Hormuz and economically strangle the mullahs only real source of revenue to promote their terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world.
That leaves Iran's oil rich western border with Iraq and Saddam is in the clink and we, America and her true allies control every single Iraqi air base ready to knock out Iran's threats if needed and will be.....after November 2nd, that is if Israel does not bomb Iran's nuke weapons plants before! Just like Saddam's French constructed and supplied Iraqi nuclear weapons plant. The Israelis were right and everybody else was wrong, including us, in 1981.
The Osiraq strike did not fully stop Saddam's quest for the bomb. Instead, Saddam's Iraq went underground and worked in secret until the program was uncovered by the U.N. nuclear watchdog in 1991.
The article above mentioned former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, a true noble leader of the Jewish people living in the state of Israel in my eyes. A man who also brought peace with another brave man in the form of Egypt's Anwar Sadat, who paid the ultimate price, we now know on the orders of a doctor turned terrorist slug which become Al-Qa'ida's number two terrorist.
Where is Iran going to go, underground or offshore into the Caspian Sea?
It's called being out flanked, surrounded , reciprocity baby, payback to the very same murderous Iranian clowns which ousted the Shah and plunged that modernizing oil rich Persian nation into a 7th century Islamic state of fear and death.
The majority of Iranians were born after the dark year of the bloody Khomeini, Carter approved coup. There are many Iranians just waiting for the day they can strike a blow for freedom, this time with American and allied assistance.
The Nazis tried to use Norway during the early 1940's in their quest for an A-bomb (info they shared with the Japs) and it was the free loving people of Norway which supplied the British Royal air force with the locations of the Nazi heavy water production, so those facilities could be bombed of the map. Those Iranians longing for real freedom will gladly assist outside forces in the very same way. Watch all this unfold.
Prove it, you stupid bastards. Reagan has always been pro-Israel. Can a dead man RIP around here? Geez!!
It was George HW Bush and James Baker that always criticized Israel including stopping Ariel Sharon from killing Arafat in Beirut, the end result being 270 Marines dying from a car bombing.
By Ze'ev Schiff 10-6-04
The battle taking place in the north of the Gaza Strip is not only about the firing of Qassam rockets at Sderot. The results of the operation will certainly affect the efforts of Hamas and its cohorts to advance to the next stage and turn the West Bank into a base - much broadened - for the launching of Qassams. Hamas has made serious attempts at this - all thwarted. Therefore, what is happening in Operation Days of Penitence is a sign of what can be expected - on a greater scale - in the West Bank.
If Ashkelon comes under fire, that could also serve as an impetus for a broader Israeli action in the south, but if Hamas succeeds in establishing a rocket-launching system in the West Bank, the Qassam problem will be transformed from a purely military one to one of strategic magnitude. Anyone who doubts this is invited to study the map and check the number of kilometers between major cities in Israel and the West Bank.
Cities like Kfar Sava, Rosh Ha'ayin, Hadera and Beit She'an will be within range of the rockets, as will the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem. This is the assessment being heard in Israeli intelligence. Even if we adopt the rather unlikely premise that Hamas will not succeed in extending the rockets' range beyond nine kilometers, it would take no more than a "little drizzle" of Qassams toward Ben-Gurion Airport for most airlines to cease flying here.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/06/2004 1:11:10 AM ||
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#1
launch detection and massive counter battery are the only answer
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/06/2004 8:48 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
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