The War's Far from Won: Harvey Kushner homes in on the home front.

The National Review ^ | Feb. 7, 2005 | Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez

[madfly]

[madfly]

[madfly]

sorry, still getting my sea legs back!

[cassie22]

Don't apologize :~) Thanks for a good post.

[LouD]

bump

[secretagent]

Thanks. Looks like it will take another big terrorist event to move us in the right direction.

[rbg81]

"The only explanation as to why we continue to ignore the secret Islamic terror network in America is that the demands of political correctness have made us so afraid of being branded racists that we force ourselves to be color blind, identity blind, and gender blind till we end up, quite simply, totally blind."

Very well said.

[janetgreen]

high-level sources within the Department of Homeland Security say DHS won't even be "somewhat functional" until 2006.

Gee, what is taking so long? Didn't the 9/11 disaster occur THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO? Wouldn't that have been a good time to secure our borders?

Here we are, years later, and it's still not politically correct to protect America.

[monkeywrench]

Bttt!

[usurper]

Only one small complaint,

Kushner: The answer to this question is rather simple, it can't. No matter how many resources we devote to what is now INS, they won't be enough unless we fix our will to deal with illegal aliens inside our country.

The INS was abolished with the creation of DHS with their enforcement branches going to ICE and CBP and the services functions separated into CIS Citizenship and Immigration Services.

It’s a small matter as what she is really talking about here is political will and I could not be in more agreement.

[madfly]

In other wars, the enemy was identified by his German, Japanese, Korean uniforms. Why is it considered "racial profiling" to consider Muslim garb the uniform of the Islamic enemy in the US in this War on Terror.

The good guys dress just like the bad guys. Time for a dress-code requirement on all VISA applications from countries known to have terrorists. Something like....

There's a war going in our country
with people who look, talk and dress like you.
In order to assist Law Enforcement and to ensure your safety,
you must agree to refrain from wearing such clothing
until official notice from
the Department Of Homeland Security.

[rbg81]

I don't think dress has anything to do with it. Mohammed Atta and his band of merry men dressed just like Westerners, down to his clean shaven, smiling face. Moral of the story? Any terrorist worth his salt will attempt to look and behave just as American as everyone else (in fact, Atta had a manual that coached just that). Indeed, they may be as American as you or I. There was the case of Jihadists up in Buffalo who were citizens, but had gone thru terrorist training in Afghanistan.

The only way to solve this problem is to stop them before they get to the border and get serious about deporting them once they're here. I see no sign that this will happen anytime soon. Unfortunately, it will probably take another 9/11 (or worse) before we drop our PC blinders.

What really bothers me is that while one side of the Republican party is trying to protect the homeland, another side (the "Grow at any Cost" Republicans) want to throw open our borders to anyone with a pulse--consequences be damned.

[SandRat]

Don't you just hate it when your fingers stutter? I do. No need to appologize we all have it happen to us.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping

[lainde]

bttt

[John Lenin]

Doe this mean the current makeup of the RAT party is finished ? I hope so, most of them would rather destroy this country unless they get to bankrupt it first.

[FBD]

NRO: How can INS, such that it is, be fixed?

Kushner: The answer to this question is rather simple, it can't. No matter how many resources we devote to what is now INS, they won't be enough unless we fix our will to deal with illegal aliens inside our country. In other words, there has to be a concerted effort from the Bush administration right down to the public itself to get beyond the paralyzing effects of political correctness and crack down on illegal aliens. I'm not only referring to those that committed felons but to those who cross our borders without permission.

NRO: You write, "We need to "make sure that none of the 7 million ocean cargo containers coming to the United States contains a weapon of mass destruction." How is that even possible?

Kushner: We should not be put off by the numbers. There is still time to fix things. America is better at crash programs than any nation in the world. It's as simple as this: We need to quickly develop the technology to inspect ocean cargo containers. All it takes is money and sometimes that's no easy task.

NRO: Complaining about political correctness feels very knee-jerk right-wingy. But is it actually an obstacle in fighting the war on terrorism?

Kushner: It sure is [an obstacle in fighting the war]. As I stated in Holy War, "The only explanation as to why we continue to ignore the secret Islamic terror network in America is that the demands of political correctness have made us so afraid of being branded racists that we force ourselves to be color blind, identity blind, and gender blind till we end up, quite simply, totally blind."

[madfly]

bttt

[JustAnotherSavage]

"Kushner: The answer to this question is rather simple, it can't. No matter how many resources we devote to what is now INS, they won't be enough unless we fix our will to deal with illegal aliens inside our country. In other words, there has to be a concerted effort from the Bush administration right down to the public itself to get beyond the paralyzing effects of political correctness and crack down on illegal aliens. I'm not only referring to those that committed felons but to those who cross our borders without permission."