National Security: Woefully Unprepared, Incomplete & Unsecure

Area Still Unprepared for Terror Attacks, Senate Panel Is Told

For all the talk, debate, discourse, negotiation with Mexico, arguments with Canada, cohesion with the UK, invasion of foreign lands, and numerous studies, we are still no closer to being a secure nation. Bush has had almost five years to work on national security and has used that time to wiretap innocent citizens. We can arrive at that conclusion because out of 5000-plus known wiretaps, none have produced a single lead, never mind an actual terrorist suspect. For all the defensive arguments offered by Bush and his gang, the wiretaps have proved useless and have tied up valuable FBI and NSA resources. As a result, our ports remain unsecured, our highways and railways are at risk, our chemical plants are extremely vulnerable and our borders are woefully unprotected.

Nearly five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Washington region still lacks a strategic plan to guide preparations for any future attacks or to effectively spend hundreds of millions of homeland security dollars, federal and local officials told a U.S. Senate panel yesterday.

The lack of a comprehensive regionwide communication system was repeatedly cited by senators as a case of poor planning and coordination. For example, Prince George's County does not have radios that are fully compatible with neighboring jurisdictions.

An oversight panel for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs took emergency response officials from the District, Maryland, Virginia and the federal government to task for bureaucratic foot-dragging and a lack of agreement on a long-term plan for protecting millions of residents in the region.

"What do we have today? What's in place today?'' asked Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.).

Local homeland security officials did not give a definitive answer. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, they said, strategies have been developed that make the region better prepared to deal with attacks, but they realize that more needs to be done.

"That's not too good after all these years, I have to tell you,'' Warner said.

Senators questioned why the Capital Region Homeland Security Strategic Plan has not been completed. The plan was promised last September but will not be available until August at the earliest, officials said. The plan would establish goals and priorities for enhancing disaster response and for efficiently spending federal preparedness dollars.

"Six months since the proposed release date, the region has yet to release a final version of the strategic plan. This is unacceptable,'' said Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), chairman of the subcommittee on oversight, which held the hearing.

Yesterday was not the first time that lawmakers expressed frustration over the pace and progress of emergency planning in the region. Although the Washington area is designated as high-risk, last year it had not spent $120 million of the federal anti-terrorism grants it received from 2002 to 2004. Officials said yesterday they have boosted the spending rate.

Warner and other senators said the poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina and the confusion and lack of communication when a small plane violated the District's airspace in May underscored the need for effective regional coordination.

Edward D. Reiskin, the District's deputy mayor for public safety and justice, assured the panel that local jurisdictions are prepared to respond to individual emergencies.

"If a big, bad thing happens, we have a response plan,'' he said after the hearing. "That's not at all what is the issue here. It's about strategic planning and about what is the vision.''

Thomas Lockwood, the DHS director for the capital region, said leaders are working hard to come up with a consensus plan. But he said the effort is hampered by fragmented authority among the region's 12 jurisdictions, two states and the District of Columbia, all three branches of the federal government, more than 2,000 nonprofit organizations and numerous regional business and civic groups. Nearly three dozen police departments operate in the District alone.

But Bush remains committed to giving other nations control over our assets, borders and security. Most of us first learned of such things when the Dubai Ports World deal hit the media. Then we found out that almost all of our ports are controlled by foreign corporations, if not foreign countries. Then we found out that most (over 70%) of the containers coming into this country are essentially a security risk. Now we have efforts to essentially bottleneck our borders with Canada, but open without resolve the borders with Mexico, all in the name of trade.

Bush Reassures Mexico Leader of His Backing for Immigrants

President Bush, in an effort to reassure Mexicans and to defuse an intense debate in the United States, told President Vicente Fox of Mexico on Thursday that he supported proposals to legalize undocumented workers as long as they were not given any advantages over immigrants who entered the United States legally.

"I explained to the president my vision of the citizenship issue," Mr. Bush said, as Mr. Fox sat next to him during their summit meeting here. "If they want to become a citizen, they can get in line, but not the head of the line."

In another comment aimed at critics within his Republican Party, Mr. Bush also talked about his support for guest-worker programs as part of an effort to open safe, legal and orderly channels for migrant workers into the United States. Opponents of the plans say they amount to opening floodgates to hundreds of thousands of workers who will cross the border from Mexico each year.

Mr. Bush said he told had Mr. Fox that he was committed to signing a "comprehensive immigration bill."

"And by 'comprehensive,' I mean not only a bill that has border security in it," Mr. Bush said, "but a bill that has a worker permit program in it. That's an important part of having a border that works.

"We don't want people sneaking into our country that are going to do jobs Americans won't do. We want them coming in in an orderly way, which will take pressure off of both our borders."

Changes in immigration law have been more fiercely debated in Congress since Monday, when the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would provide legal status to an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants and allow 400,000 foreigners a year to enter the United States as guest workers. The proposals have bitterly divided the Republican Party between those who see immigrant labor as a pillar of the American economy, and those who view it as a burden, even a threat.

The issue has dominated talks between Mr. Bush and Mr. Fox for most of their presidencies. Though the content of Thursday's talks was no different, the ambitions of the two leaders — with Mr. Bush burdened by the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, and Mr. Fox deep into his final term— was sharply diminished.

Five years ago, a newly elected Mr. Fox, buoyed by his standing as the man who peacefully ended seven decades of authoritarian rule, stood on the White House lawn and challenged the United States to work with his government on proposals that would open the border to a freer flow of workers from Mexico.

On Thursday, speaking to reporters, Mr. Fox acknowledged that the fate of immigration law was out of his and President Bush's hands.

"It is not here, in these meetings, where a migration agreement is made," he said. "It is now an issue for the Congress of the United States, and there, they will make the decision. It is no longer between President Bush and President Fox."

Mr. Fox addressed American critics who have accused Mexico of encouraging its people to migrate illegally. Mexico's economy depends heavily on the estimated $16 billion that the migrants send home annually.

Mr. Fox said that if Congress reorganized immigration, "Mexico assumes its responsibilities to work with passion, with commitment, diligently, to develop opportunities for our people."

Earlier in the day, Mr. Bush visited the 1,500-year-old Mayan ruins at Chichén Itzá, a rare moment of tourism for a president who usually has little patience for sightseeing. White House officials added the stop as a show of respect for Mexico's heritage.

Back in Cancún, Mr. Bush's motorcade sped past the ruined carcasses of hotels wiped out last year in Hurricane Wilma. He stayed at a small, luxurious resort protected by Navy vessels that bobbed offshore.

Mr. Bush also met separately with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada to discuss a long-running dispute over American imports of softwood lumber, which has grown more bitter as industries on both sides of the border have sought rulings in different international settings, starting in the Clinton administration.

Mr. Bush said of Mr. Harper, "I appreciate his steely resolve to get something done." But he gave no indication of any change in American policy.

It's not that we do not want a fair immigration policy and laws that support that policy. Indeed, most Americans are mindful that we are a nation of immigrants. We are also mindful of how unfair our immigration policies have been throughout our history. But Lou Dobbs has hit the nail on the head when he calls the position of the Mexican government hypocritical because Americans cannot outright own certain types of real estate in Mexico, Americans can only travel in certain areas of Mexico without a visa and extended permissions, and it is a felony in Mexico to cross the border illegally. The United States poses none of those restrictions upon legal immigrants or businesses from Mexico. The imbalance with Mexico is striking--almost as striking as the imbalance many decades ago when US companies dominated the events in Central American countries via various produce and factories established and protected by the US government and the Monroe Doctrine.

Other related reports/articles:

Down on Border, 'La Linea' Isn't So Clear: Bush to Discuss Illegal Crossings and Drug Trade at Three-Way Summit in Cancun

In 2005, the United States imported a record $170 billion in goods from Mexico and exported $120 billion to its southern neighbor, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Twelve years after the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, American business people tap into high-speed, Wi-Fi networks in the lobbies of U.S.-style hotels in border towns such as Nogales

Seems the imbalance is not just in the policies and laws, but also in the trade deficits. Could this be why Bush and the GOP want to open the border with Mexico even more that it is now? Big Business has moved a lot of things to Mexico and now we import a lot of things from Mexico.

H-1B Visa Debate: Do We Need To Import Technical Skills?

While the country and Congress debate the future of illegal workers in America, a quieter fight involving immigration is being battled. This week, both the House and Senate heard arguments on whether to extend the H-1B visa program which has been used to lure highly-skilled workers to the United States.

Seems to me that if we invested more in our own education system and offered more higher education opportunities we would not need to use the H-1B visa that often.

Immigration Divides Allies: Guest-Worker Plan Sets Democratic Supporters Against Organized Labor

New economic research that pits native-born workers against low-skilled immigrants in a struggle for jobs and wages has fueled a rift between some of Washington's most liberal lawmakers and their allies in economics and labor, who fear that the Democratic Party is pushing an immigration policy that forsakes the party's working-class mainstay.

The quarrel comes as the Senate debates a proposal to bring millions of immigrants into the legal workforce. A growing body of economic research contends that the recent surge of foreign workers has depressed wages for low-skilled workers, especially for high school dropouts, and has even begun displacing native-born workers. That benefits employers, higher-income consumers and the economy at large, but it may exacerbate the problems of the working class.

This is proof that the Democrats do not have consistent values for the party. The Dems are supposed to support labor and the individual producing wealth within the corporation (or business)... sweat equity is supposed to mean something the the good old US of A.

Tuning In to Anger on Immigration: Tancredo's Profile Grows With Push to Secure U.S. Borders

The question now becomes are we simply racists and xenophobes, or are we really trying to protect our borders and secure of national interests? There is a balance that recognizes the ills and problems of the past, the institutionalized racism in our past immigration policy and actually protects our borders and interests.

The first time Rep. Tom Tancredo got really angry about immigration, the year was 1975, and he was a junior high school social studies teacher in Denver. The state had recently passed the nation's first bilingual education law, and Hispanic kids were taken from his class to study in Spanish.

That idea made zero sense to Tancredo, the grandson of Italian immigrants. He believed that newcomers should be assimilated into the country, as they had been for generations. The image of America as a beacon for people from all over the world uniting under one flag and one language was threatened, he contended, if the country started adapting to immigrants, instead of the other way around.

A year later, Tancredo launched a political career animated by his obsession to stem the tide of immigration from Mexico and Central America that he feared would change the character and security of the country. Today, the four-term Republican House member stands at the center of a national debate over how best to deal with the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Tancredo helped the House pass a bill in December that would impose criminal sanctions on illegal immigrants and those who employ them and that would erect a wall along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border to keep others out.

That legislation has triggered massive protests throughout the country and prompted a Senate committee this week to pass an alternative measure with a guest-worker program that would help many illegal immigrants eventually win permanent residency or even U.S. citizenship.

Tancredo, 60, has so effectively tapped into the anger of millions of Americans who favor a crackdown on illegal immigrants and tougher measures at the border that the back-bench Republican is considering making a bid for president in two years. But in Washington, he is viewed warily by Democrats, the White House and even some of his Republican colleagues as a loose cannon or even a zealot.

U.S. Asks European Union to Be Fair in Microsoft Case

We certainly do operate with a set of double standards. If it is our corporations doing the dirty deeds, then we want every consideration and use every possible influence to sway things our way. The reality of Microsoft is revealed in the personal history of its biggest Big Shot (Bill Gates); the number of products it releases with bugs, defects and security flaws; and the number of law suits it has in almost every jurisdiction in which it conducts business (and the fact that it loses a hell of a lot of these suits). If the GOP and the Bush Administration really believe in fair trade and free capitalism, then they should stay the hell out of this ruckus... Bill Gates can afford his own highly-paid lawyers on every continent. Let Microsoft sort out its own dirty laundry.

As we can see, we are so willy-nilly on the principles of national security, border protection, free trade, fair trade and international relations that our approach is inconsistent, ineffective, and ultimately so schizophrenic that our reputation is harmed dramatically.