Inside the Ring Notes from the Pentagon/Terrorist Alert

The Washington Times ^ | Oct. 18, 2002 | Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough

[madfly]

A group of Islamic terrorists is said to be working its way toward the United States from South America. The movement was reported within the U.S. intelligence community earlier this month and sent to law enforcement authorities around the country.

[madfly]

COMMENTARY by Ben Anderson (AzAnderson.org):

Indications of this have been noticed for a long time in Cochise County: actual apprehensions of Middle East illegal aliens, prayer rugs, documents, reports by ranchers, Mexican citizens in Mexico, and "unofficial" Border Patrol agent reports.

The Arizona border is a perfect ingress point because:

• climate is similar to the desert Middle East
• physical characteristics match those of Mexican/Latin American illegals
• the border is porous and it easy to skirt the limited Border Patrol coverage
• no state or local law enforcement agencies are to be feared for they refuse to get involved with immigration issues
• Latin America and Mexico offer convenient staging sites to learn sufficient Spanish to adopt a "Latin cover"
• there is a massive and well established trade in illegal immigration and drug trafficking for cover
• many Latin American counties south of the U.S. border are part of the illegal immigration/drug trafficking problem and are considered safe havens and some Latin American countries are antagonistic to U.S. interests 
• there are numerous pro-"open borders"/pro-immigration groups hindering any tightening of constraints
• recent success by Mexico to provide Matricula Consular I.D. cards to illegals and their acceptance by some American state agencies and some U.S. banking institutions facilitate identification cover and money transfers
• both main U.S. political parties at ALL levels (congressional, state and local) are avoiding the illegal immigration issue for fear of alienating Hispanic voters during an election cycle
• much of the general American public has been cowed into acceptance of illegal immigration by the liberal main media's misinformation

Summary: A perfect scenario and landscape for Asymmetrical Warfare and Indirect Approach ingress.

[madfly]

Notes from the Pentagon, alert ping!

[SamAdams76]

What can be done to seal the U.S. border with Mexico? Do we need to militarily occupy the border area and shoot on sight anybody who crosses? I am not against this if we are certain that terrorists plan to enter the country this way.

[madfly]

Notes from the Pentagon, alert ping

[madfly]

Notes from the Pentagon, alert ping

[Kerberos]

"I am not against this if we are certain that terrorists plan to enter the country this way."

Why do we have to be certain? In the current climate that we are dealing in a hunch would be good enough for me.

[angcat]

when is the military going to start protecting our border? When it is too late. I am very distressed about this, we should be in lockdown, I say before iraq we should have been in border lockdown. Such a sad situation this country is in.

[Myrean]

The first thing that has to be done to seal our borders is for our elected leaders to realize that it's more important to enforce our immigration laws than it is to pander for voted.

Until that happens we are going to remain very vulnerable.

And it isn't going to happen until the people of this country demand it. Have you written to your Senators, Representatives, and the President to tell them that you want these laws enforced?

[Kerberos]

"I say before iraq we should have been in border lockdown. "

My thoughts also. If you're going to go down the street to pick a fight, it just makes sense to see that your own home is secure first.

[CatoRenasci]

Well, MacArthur had the interesting idea of sowing a 10 mile wide belt of radioactive cobalt (highly deadly) along the China/North Korea border to prevent outside interference in the Korean War (overridden by Truman of course). Perhaps we can seal the border with Mexico in a similar way. It would help keep the illegals out, too.

[montomike]

I have long advocated taking all the spent fuel assemblies from the nation's nuclear power plants and building a nice fence along the southern border. I would put signs up as a warning, of course. In Spanish and in English.

[RaceBannon]

bump

[ScholarWarrior]

Build a wall.
Worked for the Romans in Britain, the Chinese, most early cities, and Berlin.

[Sam's Army]

Don't forget to add a water station there as well for the long, thirsty, walk back.

[janetgreen]

It is a fact that hundreds if not thousands illegally come over the Mexican border weekly. A small percentage of these get sent back, that's all. The rest of them travel to every state.

The borders should have been closed long ago, but we have a President who wants open borders, even in the face of terrorist threats. All we can do is call, write letters and e-mails to him and to Congress, demanding that the borders be closed for national security, and that illegal aliens, especially those from muslim countries, be deported immediately. Without this, his "homeland security" plan is a joke.

A country without borders soon ceases to be a country.

[CatoRenasci]

No, English only on our side of the border, spanish signs on the border itself.

[DLfromthedesert]

I guess this is why Tenet is predicting another huge hit; When it happens, who do we blame? The CIA or the Administraion who cares more about pandering for votes than for national security?

[kstewskis]

when is the military going to start protecting our border? When it is too late. I am very distressed about this, we should be in lockdown, I say before iraq we should have been in border lockdown. Such a sad situation this country is in.

We in the desert southwest have been jumping up and down screaming about this for a long, long time...and most vocally over the last year. This situation is beyond sad...our backs will be against the wall, and it's going to get ugly if the borders aren't tightened...soon.

[madfly]

Our government is certainly concerned about Border Security in other parts of the GLOBE.

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE website)

OSCE Report Urges Training for Central Asia Police, Border Services

Washington File

18 October 2002

OSCE Report Urges Training for Central Asia Police, Border Services

(Oct. 17, Vienna: Davidson statement to OSCE Permanent Council) (241)

Douglas Davidson, Deputy Chief of the U.S. Mission to the OSCE,
praised a report prepared by the Special Adviser to the OSCE
Chairman-in-Office on Central Asia, Ambassador Herbert Salber, which
calls for increasing training for police and border services in
Central Asia.

Such training would help the OSCE fight terrorism, organized crime and
trafficking, and "improve the respect for human rights," Davidson
said.

Following are his comments: . . .

(begin transcript)



Full Text . . .

[madfly]

ping