Posted on 06/12/2006 6:23:16 AM PDT by conservativecorner
Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.
Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.
As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.
Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.
NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.
Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”
The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road. The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.
A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.
There's a big difference between "public knowledge" and "public record". Do you really believe the "average Joe" knows any of the specifics we are discussing, or does he just listen to the liberal MSM tell him that everything will be great with the amnesty plan and a North American Alliance.
The "average Joe" doesn't care beans for 90% of what's discussed here. They just aren't as wrapped up in politics as a few people are.
Thanks for the ping to the 2 sites.
As I read this, I thought how lucky Canada is as they have the U.S. bordering both land borders.
Where this superhighway is to connect with Canada is ridiculous. Northeen Ontario or Manitoba have no divided highways up there at all. The only logical place where there are divided highways would be to connect with Southern Ontario or Quebec and there are already plenty of interstate connections in place.
The Superhighway goes up to Duluth MN. I believe there are other 'highways' in the works, such as the one that Idaho's former Governor Kempthorne called for to link the state with Canada. He wanted the new highway to go through Indian Valley and on up to Canada. I don't know where his proposition stands right now though.
I do know that there were major appropriations made available for the States for highways in the last transportation bill.
those dock workers in CA are well paid americans. what do you have against them? instead, you'll have poorly trained mexican truckers replacing them.
no thanks, I'll stick with the Teamsters.
maybe there will a special fast lane for trucks carrying drugs too.
I don't have a clue about roads in Canada. Go here and check out the 4 maps that SA posted.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1634942/posts?page=1310#1310
They could if they wanted to...the information is available. They don't want to. Joe Average has a life. He's far too busy to get wrapped up in conspiracy, etc.
I'll support the unions more when they stop giving money to the rats..
You mean amnesty? Yes, I remember what a huge mistake that was.
I've already forwarded it to his mailbox. And to my local talk show host.
The NAFTA template has always involved natural resources from Canada and labor from Mexico. The lightly-populated area near Thunder Bay would seem a logical place for what will be essentially a huge freight yard. What do the road and rail infrastructures in that area look like?
Well, there's the east-west trans Canada highway and the major east-west rail lines.
This wall through the middle of America will one day be used by our enemies.
You made my point. There are plenty of valid reasons to oppose the TTC. Illegal immigration just isn't one of them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.