Minuteman Northern Border Watch Will Be International

When the American-Canadian Conservative Coalition (AC3) announced last week it was joining Chris Simcox and the Minuteman Project to develop an internationally supported citizens border watch project patterned after the successful Minuteman Project of Arizona, American and Canadian media and political observers wondered how this historic effort would work.

It was clear from the onset that with both nations sharing a mutual border of over 4,000 miles which are largely unprotected coupled with the release last week of the Canadian Senate Committee on National Security and Defense report which candidly pointed out that Canadian customs agents should carry weapons like their U.S. counterparts to prevent terror threats, time was now of the essence. This joint international effort was more than necessary -- it was imperative. In addition, the report sharply admonished Ottawa and Washington for not doing more to secure the shared border.

September 11, 2001 was a wake up call for both nations, and it has been clear -- even before the release of the Canadian Senate report -- that citizen action was needed in order to set an example for Canadians and Americans on how to protect what many in both nations have called the longest unprotected border in the world.

Canada has glaring weaknesses at its crossings that must be fixed and fixed quickly. If they aren't, they will continue to jeopardize two crucial elements of Canada's nationhood: its economic future, and its national security, stressed the Senate report.

I spoke with a representative of the Canadian border patrol and the representative confirmed the report's findings that the border patrol inspectors currently work with inadequate access to data systems designed to tell them which persons or vehicles might be dangerous and/or involved in illegal activities. Furthermore, while inspectors routinely encounter persons in possession of firearms, they themselves are armed with only batons and pepper spray. They need help. Citizens in America and Canada are more than willing to step to the plate and do their fair share. The time for wishful thinking and pointing out problems or placing blame is over.

That's why AC3 stepped up to the plate. America and Canada share many values so it seemed logical that the joint international effort by AC3 to host the first Michigan/Ontario Minuteman Border Neighborhood Watch meeting the week of July 12, 2005 in Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario becomes the setting for creating a new era of international citizen cooperation.

The primary goal of the group is to recruit and train over 5,000 members and launch the campaign to implement its plans to expand its numbers of trained members to 15,000 across the entire American/Canadian border. It seems only

logical that every border state and province be invited to join in. This is a significant first step in what promises to unfold into a much larger rally of thousands of volunteers being planned for August.

Many have asked why did it take several years since the dreadful assault upon America to wake up the spirit of cooperation of private citizens from both nations. Perhaps, both sides of the border had not seen the intrinsic value of both nations' private citizens realizing we both could not afford to suffer another attack, or a loss of our border's viability.

This is why the launching in July with Chris Simcox of the month-long recruitment effort to attract citizen volunteers on both sides of the border to work cooperatively to secure our borders and strengthen our hand-in-hand relationship with our neighbors on opposite sides of the border is so important in marking a turning point in history.

With Minuteman founder, Chris Simcox coming to Detroit and Windsor in early July to help launch the two-country Michigan/Ontario Minuteman Border Neighborhood Watch project, it is becoming clearer to citizen leaders of Canada and the United States that a piecemeal approach to protecting our border was not going to work. What was truly needed was an expanded comprehensive effort to include all provinces and states along the 4,000-mile border expanse.

Art Roselle, a founding member of AC3 felt it was necessary to show the world and especially the private citizens of Mexico that they too could work to preserve the integrity of their border by using Canada as an example. Roselle said, "Our Canadian neighbors have been very supportive of helping us encourage citizens, and civic organizations of both countries to be more informed and involved to help us protect the brotherhood of nations on the American & Canadian border."

Our Canadian counterparts felt the same and even emphasized, "More importantly," stated Matt Ford, founding member and Canadian Co-Chair of AC3, "We Canadians are committed to working with our American brothers and sisters on common issues and projects. We are honored to do our part to make sure all border crossings between our two countries are safe and legal."

With the emergence of traditional family values as key in determining the course and direction each nation would take in the culture wars being waged in both nations, AC3 formed as a citizens group that would actively promote, influence and strengthen our common moral, political and economic issues. Not enough emphasis has been placed on those mutual ties until now.

With the eruption of national news coverage over the southern border, the key question many residents of the northern Border States and Canadian provinces had to be asking themselves, if a terrorist or a group of illegal aliens were trying to sneak across either of the borders, wouldn't it appear logical that the terrorist would attempt

to negotiate a 4,000-mile border that was largely unprotected? Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has even commented recently about the porous nature of our shared American and Canadian border.

Karen Mastney, a spokeswoman for AC3 said it was commonsense that America would want to work to insure our nation's safety. "With the Minuteman Project forming on the southern border of the United States, we realized that northern border issues are just as important, and the fact that we have the support and participation of Canadian citizens is very exciting to us," remarked Karen Mastney. "It is a 'common ground issue' to us that we watch each other's backs," she concluded.

Watching each other's back is as patriotic as apple pie. That what comrades in arms do. That is what good neighbors do. That is what good friends share.

Too many times this year, the national conservative news media and conservative news media in general has been made the target of unprincipled name callers, because we have asked our own citizens in the United States to stand up for the culture of life, or to preserve the sanctity of the family, and we were ridiculed for it.

So now, when we say it is important to stand up for each other at the border, and we find willing partners in private citizens, I am sure there will be those naysayers who will again, pontificate from the easy chair while they attempt to lead the nation into the comforting darkness of tranquil inaction...only waiting for the moment to point a finger should we witness another attack from terrorists.

It is because of those naysayers that I decided to act and stay involved, when callers from Canada called my conservative News Talk show, "The Kevin Fobbs Show." It was because of conservative news talkers like Sean Hannity who have gotten involved in the issue of protecting our borders that those millions of Americans and Canadians on the border understand they are not alone, and that our fate and our solution are bound together.

News in Action could mean something and conservative Canadians discussed the direction their government was going under the banner of "diversity" and "freedom of speech" as well as some of the many problems they were witnessing in terms of border security, and know that their frustrations could be addressed, and as Chris Simcox had accomplished on the southern American and Mexican border, citizens in Canada would rise up and volunteer to protect and preserve their nation's sovereign borders.

The Canadians who had felt isolated understood the need for an organization which would be able to address many pressing conservative concerns as well as one of their most pressing national concerns -- national security of their porous border. Conservative news talk, which was only a shallow ebb in their national spirit, was now beginning to beat more soundly. Something could be done and something would be accomplished.

Of course there were many in the last several months that would have gladly danced on the failure of this noble patriotic effort. But they were wrong, because these ignoble detractors truly had no value for liberty in their heart or in their spirit. These self appointed judges of political policies could not see that what was emerging in the hearts and spirits of private citizens, businesses and people of faith, was a need to take the politics completely out of the public policies which supported public service and volunteerism that made perfect sense to Americans and Canadians.

These citizens along the American and Canadian border fully understood that preserving the community you live in or the safety of your family was not tied conveniently to a political party. Its bond was the same bond that brought our founding fathers together. It goal was an allegiance to collectively secure urban (and rural) and suburban America's and Canada's safety one neighborhood, one city, one family and one person at a time.

These are irrefutable principles of faith. It is our faith that sustains us and empowers our international effort. It is our bond with each other in our pursuit of traditional family values, which is part of our principles of faith. The fact that our work and our faith became international in scope just meant that all those same principles apply no matter where one lives, in America or in Canada.

That is why we have opened this historic international effort. If you live in one of the Border States and would like to be a part of the international kick off you should get involved. It does not take much to sign up as an individual boater, angler, retiree, or patriotic citizen, when you understand you or your neighbor could be the difference in assisting to protect our border.

What can a business do or even a civic group or a church? A whole lot is the answer. No effort is too small. So sign up your organization, business, civic association, faith group or any other appropriate individual or group. It truly is the right thing to do. If you simply want to obtain more information on the July and August events, you can contact AC3 spokesperson Art Roselle at 248-840-6133 or call 313-749-1659. You can also write AC3 spokesperson Karen Mastney at kmastney@aol.com. You can also contact Chris Simcox at the Minuteman Project by calling him at (520) 457-2320 or by email at info@MinutemanHQ.com

Sometimes in the course of human events we have an opportunity to be a part of preserving our liberty. Now is certainly one of those times. As citizen patriots, join the effort to use your eyes, ears and cell phones to assist in protecting our two nations, our traditional values, and send a message to Mexican private citizens to the south of our border that in order to remain safe, to remain free, it is in our mutual interest to work together to preserve the integrity and viability of our mutual borders.

Let this Summer of Freedom In America and Reclaiming Canada mean something as we work to attract citizen volunteers on both sides of the border who will work cooperatively to secure our borders and strengthen our hand-in-hand relationship with our neighbors on opposite sides of the border and preserve a mutual shared legacy of freedom.

Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac). View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist to the Detroit News. He is also Outreach Communications Vice Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit as well as co-founder of the Jackson, MI-based American Conservative Values Television Network. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385).

Click to see other threads related to illegal aliens in America

Kevin, this will probably get moved to Blogs or the Smoky Backroom rather quickly, since (personally) I feel that's where this belongs. In the meantime, we'll get you some exposure through the Border Ping List.

This is the same situation that those of us near the southern border are in, and we realize that we can't count on either "political party" to enforce the laws, including our President.

The invasion will continue until we can elect an American patriot for President (are there any of those out there?)

The Minuteman is going North - to Canada (and international) . .

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September 11, 2001 was a wake up call for both nations, and it has been clear -- even before the release of the Canadian Senate report -- that citizen action was needed in order to set an example for Canadians and Americans on how to protect what many in both nations have called the longest unprotected border in the world.
Canada has glaring weaknesses at its crossings that must be fixed and fixed quickly. If they aren't, they will continue to jeopardize two crucial elements of Canada's nationhood: its economic future, and its national security, stressed the Senate report.
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Thunder on the Border-- (Minuteman Project) various FR links & stories.

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What does El Presidente Fox have to say about it?

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