http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections20 ... 39,00.html
Hope the link works. The author is an american I think.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections20 ... 27,00.html
I thought an outside take on the US election might be of interest.
a different perspective
-
Pearl Harbor
- Posts: 128
- Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 12:00 pm
a different perspective
I can't take much issue with this article. The one error these people forget is that the House of Saud is huge. It's like saying I am in collusion with the House of Smith, or Jones. Doesn't hold much water.
An old-timer like me is more concerned about our immigration policy. I feel Bush is soft on terror because our borders are wide-open. Take a minute and read this Time Magazine report:
3 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS TO FLOOD THE U.S. THIS YEAR
Sun Sep 12 2004 11:39:54 ET
The U.S.’s borders, rather than become more secure since 9/11, have grown even more porous and the trend has accelerated in the past year. Based on a TIME investigation, it’s fair to estimate that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million, enough to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-700 airliners, or 60 flights every day. It will be the largest wave since 2001 and roughly triple the number of immigrants who will come to America by legal means, TIME reports in its cover story , "Who Left the Door Open?" (on newsstands Monday, Sept. 13th).
In a single day, more than 4,000 illegal aliens will walk across the busiest unlawful gateway into the U.S., the border between Arizona and Mexico. And many will obtain phony identification papers, including bogus Social Security numbers, to conceal their true identities and mask their unlawful presence. TIME’s Pulitzer Prize winning investigative team, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, takes a look at the damage, the dangers, and the reasons America fails to protect itself as millions of illegal aliens pour across the U.S.-Mexican border this year, many from countries hostile to America.
Who are these new arrivals?
While the vast majority are Mexicans, a small but sharply growing number come from other countries, including those with large populations hostile to the U.S. From Oct. 1 of last year until Aug. 25, the border patrol estimates, it apprehended along the southwest border 55,890 people who fall into the category described officially as other than Mexicans, or OTMS. With five weeks remaining in the fiscal year, the number is nearly double the 28,048 apprehended in all of 2002. But that’s just how many were caught.
Based on longtime government formulas for calculating how many elude capture, TIME estimates that as many as 190,000 illegals from countries other than Mexico have melted into the U.S. population so far this year. The border patrol, which is run by the Department of Homeland Security, refuses to break down OTMS by country. But local law officers, ranchers and others who daily confront the issue tell TIME they have encountered not only a wide variety of Latin Americans (from Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela) but also intruders from Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Russia and China, as well as people who said they were from Egypt, Iran and Iraq.
Law-enforcement authorities believe the mass movement of illegals offers the perfect cover for terrorists seeking to enter the U.S., especially since tighter controls have been imposed at airports.
Why Alien Criminals Are at Large in America
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of having 15 million illegals at large in society is Congress’s failure to insist that federal agencies separate those who pose a threat from those who don’t. The open borders, for example, allow illegals to come into the country, commit crimes and return home with little fear of arrest or punishment. From Oct. 1, 2003, until July 20, 2004, the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector stopped 9,051 persons crossing into the country illegally who had criminal records in the U.S., meaning they committed crimes here, returned to Mexico, then were trying to reenter the country. Among them: 378 with active warrants for their arrest. In one week, said Border Patrol spokeswoman Andrea Zortman, there were two with outstanding "warrants for homicide."
Living in the War Zone
John Ladd Jr., a rancher just outside Bisbee, AZ, is forced to work the equivalent of several weeks a year to repair, as best he can, all the damage done to his property by never-ending swarms of illegal aliens. "Patience is my forte," Ladd says, "but it’s getting lower." The 14,000-acre Ladd ranch, in his mother’s family since the 1800s, is right on the border. Ladd says 200 to 300 illegals enter the U.S. Border crossing at the Ladd ranch each night and it is so flagrant that sometimes the illegals arrive by taxi.
Ladd doesn’t blame the border patrol, most of whose officers, he says, are doing all they can under the circumstances. Indeed, apprehensions of illegals in Arizona have soared from 9% of the nation’s total in 1993 to 51% this year. "I have real heartache for the agents who are really working. They track down the [smugglers], and the judges let them off, and they get a free trip back to Mexico, where they can start all over." The border patrol, Ladd feels, "are responsible guys in a hypocritical bureaucracy."
Rancher George Morin, who operates a 12,000-acre spread a few miles from the border, tells TIME, "All these people say they are coming for the amnesty program. have been told if they get 10 miles off the border, they are home free." The highest levels of the U.S. and Mexican governments have orchestrated this situation as a kind of dance: Mexico sends its poor north to take jobs illegally, and the U.S., in turn, arrests enough of the border crossers to create the illusion that it is enforcing the immigration laws, while allowing the great majority to get through, TIME reports.
How Corporate America Thrives on Illegals
Investigations targeting employers of illegal aliens dropped more than 70%, from 7,053 in 1992 to 2,061 in 2002. Arrests on job sites declined from 8,027 in 1992 to 451 in 2002. Perhaps the most dramatic decline: the final orders levying fines for immigration-law violations plunged 99%, from 1,063 in 1992 to 13 in 2002. In 2002 the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issued orders levying fines on only 13 employers for hiring illegal aliens, a minuscule portion of the thousands of offenders.
Both political parties and their candidates pay lip service to controlling the borders. But neither President Bush nor Senator Kerry supports a system that would end the incentive for border crossers by cracking down on the employers of illegals, TIME reports.
An old-timer like me is more concerned about our immigration policy. I feel Bush is soft on terror because our borders are wide-open. Take a minute and read this Time Magazine report:
3 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS TO FLOOD THE U.S. THIS YEAR
Sun Sep 12 2004 11:39:54 ET
The U.S.’s borders, rather than become more secure since 9/11, have grown even more porous and the trend has accelerated in the past year. Based on a TIME investigation, it’s fair to estimate that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million, enough to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-700 airliners, or 60 flights every day. It will be the largest wave since 2001 and roughly triple the number of immigrants who will come to America by legal means, TIME reports in its cover story , "Who Left the Door Open?" (on newsstands Monday, Sept. 13th).
In a single day, more than 4,000 illegal aliens will walk across the busiest unlawful gateway into the U.S., the border between Arizona and Mexico. And many will obtain phony identification papers, including bogus Social Security numbers, to conceal their true identities and mask their unlawful presence. TIME’s Pulitzer Prize winning investigative team, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, takes a look at the damage, the dangers, and the reasons America fails to protect itself as millions of illegal aliens pour across the U.S.-Mexican border this year, many from countries hostile to America.
Who are these new arrivals?
While the vast majority are Mexicans, a small but sharply growing number come from other countries, including those with large populations hostile to the U.S. From Oct. 1 of last year until Aug. 25, the border patrol estimates, it apprehended along the southwest border 55,890 people who fall into the category described officially as other than Mexicans, or OTMS. With five weeks remaining in the fiscal year, the number is nearly double the 28,048 apprehended in all of 2002. But that’s just how many were caught.
Based on longtime government formulas for calculating how many elude capture, TIME estimates that as many as 190,000 illegals from countries other than Mexico have melted into the U.S. population so far this year. The border patrol, which is run by the Department of Homeland Security, refuses to break down OTMS by country. But local law officers, ranchers and others who daily confront the issue tell TIME they have encountered not only a wide variety of Latin Americans (from Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela) but also intruders from Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Russia and China, as well as people who said they were from Egypt, Iran and Iraq.
Law-enforcement authorities believe the mass movement of illegals offers the perfect cover for terrorists seeking to enter the U.S., especially since tighter controls have been imposed at airports.
Why Alien Criminals Are at Large in America
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of having 15 million illegals at large in society is Congress’s failure to insist that federal agencies separate those who pose a threat from those who don’t. The open borders, for example, allow illegals to come into the country, commit crimes and return home with little fear of arrest or punishment. From Oct. 1, 2003, until July 20, 2004, the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector stopped 9,051 persons crossing into the country illegally who had criminal records in the U.S., meaning they committed crimes here, returned to Mexico, then were trying to reenter the country. Among them: 378 with active warrants for their arrest. In one week, said Border Patrol spokeswoman Andrea Zortman, there were two with outstanding "warrants for homicide."
Living in the War Zone
John Ladd Jr., a rancher just outside Bisbee, AZ, is forced to work the equivalent of several weeks a year to repair, as best he can, all the damage done to his property by never-ending swarms of illegal aliens. "Patience is my forte," Ladd says, "but it’s getting lower." The 14,000-acre Ladd ranch, in his mother’s family since the 1800s, is right on the border. Ladd says 200 to 300 illegals enter the U.S. Border crossing at the Ladd ranch each night and it is so flagrant that sometimes the illegals arrive by taxi.
Ladd doesn’t blame the border patrol, most of whose officers, he says, are doing all they can under the circumstances. Indeed, apprehensions of illegals in Arizona have soared from 9% of the nation’s total in 1993 to 51% this year. "I have real heartache for the agents who are really working. They track down the [smugglers], and the judges let them off, and they get a free trip back to Mexico, where they can start all over." The border patrol, Ladd feels, "are responsible guys in a hypocritical bureaucracy."
Rancher George Morin, who operates a 12,000-acre spread a few miles from the border, tells TIME, "All these people say they are coming for the amnesty program. have been told if they get 10 miles off the border, they are home free." The highest levels of the U.S. and Mexican governments have orchestrated this situation as a kind of dance: Mexico sends its poor north to take jobs illegally, and the U.S., in turn, arrests enough of the border crossers to create the illusion that it is enforcing the immigration laws, while allowing the great majority to get through, TIME reports.
How Corporate America Thrives on Illegals
Investigations targeting employers of illegal aliens dropped more than 70%, from 7,053 in 1992 to 2,061 in 2002. Arrests on job sites declined from 8,027 in 1992 to 451 in 2002. Perhaps the most dramatic decline: the final orders levying fines for immigration-law violations plunged 99%, from 1,063 in 1992 to 13 in 2002. In 2002 the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issued orders levying fines on only 13 employers for hiring illegal aliens, a minuscule portion of the thousands of offenders.
Both political parties and their candidates pay lip service to controlling the borders. But neither President Bush nor Senator Kerry supports a system that would end the incentive for border crossers by cracking down on the employers of illegals, TIME reports.
a different perspective
I can't take much issue with this article. The one error these people forget is that the House of Saud is huge. It's like saying I am in collusion with the House of Smith, or Jones. Doesn't hold much water.
The sister in law of osama bin laden was interviewed on british television, now seperated from her husband and in hiding,when asked if it osama was ostracised she pointed out that unlike larger countries clan tribal ties are still strong anyone named bin laden is very likely to be connected by blood in some direct way to another bin laden-this is not like the macdonalds or the mackenzies.
More to the point does it not bother you that these connections exist and you have an administration that far from going after the financiers of the the terrorists acts as if they have no possible connection? The saudi connection should have been the first port of call.
This is not some nation state attacking but a viscious group of nutters. Going in guns blazing is not going to work. I don't know what will but collateral damege mekes more not less terrorists.
The sister in law of osama bin laden was interviewed on british television, now seperated from her husband and in hiding,when asked if it osama was ostracised she pointed out that unlike larger countries clan tribal ties are still strong anyone named bin laden is very likely to be connected by blood in some direct way to another bin laden-this is not like the macdonalds or the mackenzies.
More to the point does it not bother you that these connections exist and you have an administration that far from going after the financiers of the the terrorists acts as if they have no possible connection? The saudi connection should have been the first port of call.
This is not some nation state attacking but a viscious group of nutters. Going in guns blazing is not going to work. I don't know what will but collateral damege mekes more not less terrorists.
a different perspective
It bothers me. But I'm pragmatic enough to believe that the Bush Administration understands our dependence on oil. (That was an understatment.) If we got shut-off from our main oil supplies - it would cripple this country - and most likely cripple much of Western Europe. (We are tied at the hip - especially with our financial markets.)
So...with that...who the heck knows. I do know that there is usually a LOT more behind the curtain than we can even guess at. That's either good or bad depending on who is leading the country.
gmc wrote: The sister in law of osama bin laden was interviewed on british television, now seperated from her husband and in hiding,when asked if it osama was ostracised she pointed out that unlike larger countries clan tribal ties are still strong anyone named bin laden is very likely to be connected by blood in some direct way to another bin laden-this is not like the macdonalds or the mackenzies.
More to the point does it not bother you that these connections exist and you have an administration that far from going after the financiers of the the terrorists acts as if they have no possible connection? The saudi connection should have been the first port of call.
This is not some nation state attacking but a viscious group of nutters. Going in guns blazing is not going to work. I don't know what will but collateral damege mekes more not less terrorists.
So...with that...who the heck knows. I do know that there is usually a LOT more behind the curtain than we can even guess at. That's either good or bad depending on who is leading the country.
gmc wrote: The sister in law of osama bin laden was interviewed on british television, now seperated from her husband and in hiding,when asked if it osama was ostracised she pointed out that unlike larger countries clan tribal ties are still strong anyone named bin laden is very likely to be connected by blood in some direct way to another bin laden-this is not like the macdonalds or the mackenzies.
More to the point does it not bother you that these connections exist and you have an administration that far from going after the financiers of the the terrorists acts as if they have no possible connection? The saudi connection should have been the first port of call.
This is not some nation state attacking but a viscious group of nutters. Going in guns blazing is not going to work. I don't know what will but collateral damege mekes more not less terrorists.
Please use the "contact us" button if you need to contact a ForumGarden admin.
a different perspective
It's a finite resource, not encouraging alternatives is short sighted, it's ok for us its the grand and great grand children that will wonder why we just let things go by.
Saudi arabia is unstable it's only a matter of time before the Sauds lose their grip, feudal societies carry the seeds of their own distruction and the more they try and hang on the more violent their overthrow will be. Having said that I haven't a clue what is going to happen next. Oil prices are going to go up because of rising demand whether the west likes it or not, going in mob handed to control the middle east i don't think will work.
Saudi arabia is unstable it's only a matter of time before the Sauds lose their grip, feudal societies carry the seeds of their own distruction and the more they try and hang on the more violent their overthrow will be. Having said that I haven't a clue what is going to happen next. Oil prices are going to go up because of rising demand whether the west likes it or not, going in mob handed to control the middle east i don't think will work.
a different perspective
gmc,
What have you heard about Russia and South America? The last analysis I read had pretty high hopes for massive quantities of oil in Russia. They also speculate that there is a ton of oil in South America that has not even been discovered.
Will this eventually be a tipping point of "power" away from the OPEC cartel?
Necessity is the mother of invention and I bet that when oil hits 70 to 100 bucks per barrel, someone somewhere will have a breakthrough.
It's just that their timing is less than optimal. 
What have you heard about Russia and South America? The last analysis I read had pretty high hopes for massive quantities of oil in Russia. They also speculate that there is a ton of oil in South America that has not even been discovered.
Will this eventually be a tipping point of "power" away from the OPEC cartel?
Necessity is the mother of invention and I bet that when oil hits 70 to 100 bucks per barrel, someone somewhere will have a breakthrough.
It's just that their timing is less than optimal. 
Please use the "contact us" button if you need to contact a ForumGarden admin.
a different perspective
One of the pay offs going in to afghanistan is building the pipeline that the taliban would not let them, Most of the oil in Russia is in sililarly unstable regions. The trouble is the west has a habit of propping up repressive regimes in order to get the oil rather than letting politics in a country take their own course be it venezuela nigeria, kurdestan oy anyehere else.
a different perspective
Interesting. I've fallen behind on keeping up with oil politics - but I'm a believer in your assessment.
gmc wrote: One of the pay offs going in to afghanistan is building the pipeline that the taliban would not let them, Most of the oil in Russia is in similarly unstable regions. The trouble is the west has a habit of propping up repressive regimes in order to get the oil rather than letting politics in a country take their own course be it Venezuela Nigeria, Kurdistan oy anywhere else.
gmc wrote: One of the pay offs going in to afghanistan is building the pipeline that the taliban would not let them, Most of the oil in Russia is in similarly unstable regions. The trouble is the west has a habit of propping up repressive regimes in order to get the oil rather than letting politics in a country take their own course be it Venezuela Nigeria, Kurdistan oy anywhere else.
Please use the "contact us" button if you need to contact a ForumGarden admin.
a different perspective
Pearl Harbor,
Here is some additional news about this subject:
http://michnews.com/artman/publish/article_5094.shtml - Entitled:
In Violation of Their Oath of Office
Pearl Harbor wrote: I can't take much issue with this article. The one error these people forget is that the House of Saud is huge. It's like saying I am in collusion with the House of Smith, or Jones. Doesn't hold much water.
An old-timer like me is more concerned about our immigration policy. I feel Bush is soft on terror because our borders are wide-open. Take a minute and read this Time Magazine report:
3 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS TO FLOOD THE U.S. THIS YEAR
Sun Sep 12 2004 11:39:54 ET
The U.S.’s borders, rather than become more secure since 9/11, have grown even more porous and the trend has accelerated in the past year. Based on a TIME investigation, it’s fair to estimate that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million, enough to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-700 airliners, or 60 flights every day. It will be the largest wave since 2001 and roughly triple the number of immigrants who will come to America by legal means, TIME reports in its cover story , "Who Left the Door Open?" (on newsstands Monday, Sept. 13th).
In a single day, more than 4,000 illegal aliens will walk across the busiest unlawful gateway into the U.S., the border between Arizona and Mexico. And many will obtain phony identification papers, including bogus Social Security numbers, to conceal their true identities and mask their unlawful presence. TIME’s Pulitzer Prize winning investigative team, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, takes a look at the damage, the dangers, and the reasons America fails to protect itself as millions of illegal aliens pour across the U.S.-Mexican border this year, many from countries hostile to America.
Who are these new arrivals?
While the vast majority are Mexicans, a small but sharply growing number come from other countries, including those with large populations hostile to the U.S. From Oct. 1 of last year until Aug. 25, the border patrol estimates, it apprehended along the southwest border 55,890 people who fall into the category described officially as other than Mexicans, or OTMS. With five weeks remaining in the fiscal year, the number is nearly double the 28,048 apprehended in all of 2002. But that’s just how many were caught.
Based on longtime government formulas for calculating how many elude capture, TIME estimates that as many as 190,000 illegals from countries other than Mexico have melted into the U.S. population so far this year. The border patrol, which is run by the Department of Homeland Security, refuses to break down OTMS by country. But local law officers, ranchers and others who daily confront the issue tell TIME they have encountered not only a wide variety of Latin Americans (from Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela) but also intruders from Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Russia and China, as well as people who said they were from Egypt, Iran and Iraq.
Law-enforcement authorities believe the mass movement of illegals offers the perfect cover for terrorists seeking to enter the U.S., especially since tighter controls have been imposed at airports.
Why Alien Criminals Are at Large in America
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of having 15 million illegals at large in society is Congress’s failure to insist that federal agencies separate those who pose a threat from those who don’t. The open borders, for example, allow illegals to come into the country, commit crimes and return home with little fear of arrest or punishment. From Oct. 1, 2003, until July 20, 2004, the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector stopped 9,051 persons crossing into the country illegally who had criminal records in the U.S., meaning they committed crimes here, returned to Mexico, then were trying to reenter the country. Among them: 378 with active warrants for their arrest. In one week, said Border Patrol spokeswoman Andrea Zortman, there were two with outstanding "warrants for homicide."
Living in the War Zone
John Ladd Jr., a rancher just outside Bisbee, AZ, is forced to work the equivalent of several weeks a year to repair, as best he can, all the damage done to his property by never-ending swarms of illegal aliens. "Patience is my forte," Ladd says, "but it’s getting lower." The 14,000-acre Ladd ranch, in his mother’s family since the 1800s, is right on the border. Ladd says 200 to 300 illegals enter the U.S. Border crossing at the Ladd ranch each night and it is so flagrant that sometimes the illegals arrive by taxi.
Ladd doesn’t blame the border patrol, most of whose officers, he says, are doing all they can under the circumstances. Indeed, apprehensions of illegals in Arizona have soared from 9% of the nation’s total in 1993 to 51% this year. "I have real heartache for the agents who are really working. They track down the [smugglers], and the judges let them off, and they get a free trip back to Mexico, where they can start all over." The border patrol, Ladd feels, "are responsible guys in a hypocritical bureaucracy."
Rancher George Morin, who operates a 12,000-acre spread a few miles from the border, tells TIME, "All these people say they are coming for the amnesty program. have been told if they get 10 miles off the border, they are home free." The highest levels of the U.S. and Mexican governments have orchestrated this situation as a kind of dance: Mexico sends its poor north to take jobs illegally, and the U.S., in turn, arrests enough of the border crossers to create the illusion that it is enforcing the immigration laws, while allowing the great majority to get through, TIME reports.
How Corporate America Thrives on Illegals
Investigations targeting employers of illegal aliens dropped more than 70%, from 7,053 in 1992 to 2,061 in 2002. Arrests on job sites declined from 8,027 in 1992 to 451 in 2002. Perhaps the most dramatic decline: the final orders levying fines for immigration-law violations plunged 99%, from 1,063 in 1992 to 13 in 2002. In 2002 the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issued orders levying fines on only 13 employers for hiring illegal aliens, a minuscule portion of the thousands of offenders.
Both political parties and their candidates pay lip service to controlling the borders. But neither President Bush nor Senator Kerry supports a system that would end the incentive for border crossers by cracking down on the employers of illegals, TIME reports.
Here is some additional news about this subject:
http://michnews.com/artman/publish/article_5094.shtml - Entitled:
In Violation of Their Oath of Office
Pearl Harbor wrote: I can't take much issue with this article. The one error these people forget is that the House of Saud is huge. It's like saying I am in collusion with the House of Smith, or Jones. Doesn't hold much water.
An old-timer like me is more concerned about our immigration policy. I feel Bush is soft on terror because our borders are wide-open. Take a minute and read this Time Magazine report:
3 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS TO FLOOD THE U.S. THIS YEAR
Sun Sep 12 2004 11:39:54 ET
The U.S.’s borders, rather than become more secure since 9/11, have grown even more porous and the trend has accelerated in the past year. Based on a TIME investigation, it’s fair to estimate that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million, enough to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-700 airliners, or 60 flights every day. It will be the largest wave since 2001 and roughly triple the number of immigrants who will come to America by legal means, TIME reports in its cover story , "Who Left the Door Open?" (on newsstands Monday, Sept. 13th).
In a single day, more than 4,000 illegal aliens will walk across the busiest unlawful gateway into the U.S., the border between Arizona and Mexico. And many will obtain phony identification papers, including bogus Social Security numbers, to conceal their true identities and mask their unlawful presence. TIME’s Pulitzer Prize winning investigative team, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, takes a look at the damage, the dangers, and the reasons America fails to protect itself as millions of illegal aliens pour across the U.S.-Mexican border this year, many from countries hostile to America.
Who are these new arrivals?
While the vast majority are Mexicans, a small but sharply growing number come from other countries, including those with large populations hostile to the U.S. From Oct. 1 of last year until Aug. 25, the border patrol estimates, it apprehended along the southwest border 55,890 people who fall into the category described officially as other than Mexicans, or OTMS. With five weeks remaining in the fiscal year, the number is nearly double the 28,048 apprehended in all of 2002. But that’s just how many were caught.
Based on longtime government formulas for calculating how many elude capture, TIME estimates that as many as 190,000 illegals from countries other than Mexico have melted into the U.S. population so far this year. The border patrol, which is run by the Department of Homeland Security, refuses to break down OTMS by country. But local law officers, ranchers and others who daily confront the issue tell TIME they have encountered not only a wide variety of Latin Americans (from Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela) but also intruders from Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Russia and China, as well as people who said they were from Egypt, Iran and Iraq.
Law-enforcement authorities believe the mass movement of illegals offers the perfect cover for terrorists seeking to enter the U.S., especially since tighter controls have been imposed at airports.
Why Alien Criminals Are at Large in America
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of having 15 million illegals at large in society is Congress’s failure to insist that federal agencies separate those who pose a threat from those who don’t. The open borders, for example, allow illegals to come into the country, commit crimes and return home with little fear of arrest or punishment. From Oct. 1, 2003, until July 20, 2004, the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector stopped 9,051 persons crossing into the country illegally who had criminal records in the U.S., meaning they committed crimes here, returned to Mexico, then were trying to reenter the country. Among them: 378 with active warrants for their arrest. In one week, said Border Patrol spokeswoman Andrea Zortman, there were two with outstanding "warrants for homicide."
Living in the War Zone
John Ladd Jr., a rancher just outside Bisbee, AZ, is forced to work the equivalent of several weeks a year to repair, as best he can, all the damage done to his property by never-ending swarms of illegal aliens. "Patience is my forte," Ladd says, "but it’s getting lower." The 14,000-acre Ladd ranch, in his mother’s family since the 1800s, is right on the border. Ladd says 200 to 300 illegals enter the U.S. Border crossing at the Ladd ranch each night and it is so flagrant that sometimes the illegals arrive by taxi.
Ladd doesn’t blame the border patrol, most of whose officers, he says, are doing all they can under the circumstances. Indeed, apprehensions of illegals in Arizona have soared from 9% of the nation’s total in 1993 to 51% this year. "I have real heartache for the agents who are really working. They track down the [smugglers], and the judges let them off, and they get a free trip back to Mexico, where they can start all over." The border patrol, Ladd feels, "are responsible guys in a hypocritical bureaucracy."
Rancher George Morin, who operates a 12,000-acre spread a few miles from the border, tells TIME, "All these people say they are coming for the amnesty program. have been told if they get 10 miles off the border, they are home free." The highest levels of the U.S. and Mexican governments have orchestrated this situation as a kind of dance: Mexico sends its poor north to take jobs illegally, and the U.S., in turn, arrests enough of the border crossers to create the illusion that it is enforcing the immigration laws, while allowing the great majority to get through, TIME reports.
How Corporate America Thrives on Illegals
Investigations targeting employers of illegal aliens dropped more than 70%, from 7,053 in 1992 to 2,061 in 2002. Arrests on job sites declined from 8,027 in 1992 to 451 in 2002. Perhaps the most dramatic decline: the final orders levying fines for immigration-law violations plunged 99%, from 1,063 in 1992 to 13 in 2002. In 2002 the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issued orders levying fines on only 13 employers for hiring illegal aliens, a minuscule portion of the thousands of offenders.
Both political parties and their candidates pay lip service to controlling the borders. But neither President Bush nor Senator Kerry supports a system that would end the incentive for border crossers by cracking down on the employers of illegals, TIME reports.
Please use the "contact us" button if you need to contact a ForumGarden admin.
a different perspective
gmc,
Did you see this? Looks like the Saudi's are going to have some legal wranglings. A good read:
Saudis To Be Sued Over 911
By Torcuil Crichton
The Sunday Herald
9-12-4
Senior members of the ruling Saudi royal family have been accused of ultimate responsibility for the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre that killed nearly 3000 people and sparked the worldwide "war on terror".
------ ------
Fifteen of the 19 suicide bombers who flew hijacked passenger planes into the twin towers and the Pentagon were Saudi Arabians. Senior members of the country's ruling family have long been suspected of sponsoring the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's terrorist ventures to prevent domestic unrest. Alongside its absolute monarchy, the cornerstone of Saudi society is Wahhabism, an austere form of Islam that promotes jihad (holy war) against non- believers and holds that only the chosen ones of their own faith will go to Heaven.
http://www.sundayherald.com/44763
gmc wrote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections20 ... 39,00.html
Hope the link works. The author is an american I think.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections20 ... 27,00.html
I thought an outside take on the US election might be of interest.
Did you see this? Looks like the Saudi's are going to have some legal wranglings. A good read:
Saudis To Be Sued Over 911
By Torcuil Crichton
The Sunday Herald
9-12-4
Senior members of the ruling Saudi royal family have been accused of ultimate responsibility for the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre that killed nearly 3000 people and sparked the worldwide "war on terror".
------ ------
Fifteen of the 19 suicide bombers who flew hijacked passenger planes into the twin towers and the Pentagon were Saudi Arabians. Senior members of the country's ruling family have long been suspected of sponsoring the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's terrorist ventures to prevent domestic unrest. Alongside its absolute monarchy, the cornerstone of Saudi society is Wahhabism, an austere form of Islam that promotes jihad (holy war) against non- believers and holds that only the chosen ones of their own faith will go to Heaven.
http://www.sundayherald.com/44763
gmc wrote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections20 ... 39,00.html
Hope the link works. The author is an american I think.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections20 ... 27,00.html
I thought an outside take on the US election might be of interest.
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a different perspective
Senior members of the country's ruling family have long been suspected of sponsoring the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's terrorist ventures to prevent domestic unrest
Could be interesting, american media seem to ignore the question as to who are the terrorists, ours do as well to some extent but these kinds of things feature in our tabloids as well as the "qualities". If they can make their case then it could get really interesting. One of the constant criticisms is that invading Iraq has detracted attention away from catching the terrorists, it's almost like bush needs the terroriists to scare people in to letting him stay in power.
what an Eclectic reader you must be, the herald is a Glasgow based newspaper.
I've been trawling through some of the american newspapers, the locals make fascinating reading to an outsider.
Our immigration concerns are centred on eastern europe, as an island its harder to get here.
The immigration debate gets a different spin though, over here its used by the right wing to stir things up and is seen more as british national party scaremongering, most people don't fall for it but in deprived areas they find fertile ground as immigrants make a convenient scape goat. We are fairly tolerant but some of the islamic groups are stirring things up by trying to get things like the blasphemy laws extended to islam, not getting the reaction they expect as they are more likely to be repealed.
http://www.thatsbraw.co.uk/
Bit of scots culture for you, have your phrase book ready
Could be interesting, american media seem to ignore the question as to who are the terrorists, ours do as well to some extent but these kinds of things feature in our tabloids as well as the "qualities". If they can make their case then it could get really interesting. One of the constant criticisms is that invading Iraq has detracted attention away from catching the terrorists, it's almost like bush needs the terroriists to scare people in to letting him stay in power.
what an Eclectic reader you must be, the herald is a Glasgow based newspaper.
I've been trawling through some of the american newspapers, the locals make fascinating reading to an outsider.
Our immigration concerns are centred on eastern europe, as an island its harder to get here.
The immigration debate gets a different spin though, over here its used by the right wing to stir things up and is seen more as british national party scaremongering, most people don't fall for it but in deprived areas they find fertile ground as immigrants make a convenient scape goat. We are fairly tolerant but some of the islamic groups are stirring things up by trying to get things like the blasphemy laws extended to islam, not getting the reaction they expect as they are more likely to be repealed.
http://www.thatsbraw.co.uk/
Bit of scots culture for you, have your phrase book ready