I sure don't think increased border security is meant to to keep us out of each other's countries.
I was at a Canadian Government website and read a page that found it necessary to remind Canadians that The USA is a foreign country! I've never thought of America as a 'foreign' country. Only as a place south of where I am.
It annoys me that we need this extra security thanks to those (insert swear word here) terrorists that attacked us. ( I realize it was America that was attacked, but the first thing I said when I heard about it was, "Who attacked us? Why did they attack us?")
CLOSE THE BORDERS-If Not Now, When?
it is incumbent upon the American people to lead: Demand our borders are sealed – pronto; and that visa violators are expelled. Playtime is over.
Source: The Social Contract Quarterly
Published: Fall edition - 2001 Author: Wayne Lutton, Ph.D.
At least four of the suspects in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center entered the United States from Canada. Suicide hijackers Mohammed Atta and Abdul Alumari crossed into Coburn Gore, Maine early that Tuesday before catching a 6 a.m. flight from Portland to Boston. From Logan Airport, they commandeered the two commercial jetliners that crashed into the World Trade Center. Other participants in the terrorist attack waltzed into the United States from locations in Canada. A third suspect appears to have entered the United States at Jackman, Maine, while others may have taken a ferry from Nova Scotia.
Organizations and individuals involved in criminal and terrorist activities have long recognized that Canada is a safe base from which to conduct operations against targets around the world. Two years ago, David Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country's main intelligence agency, admitted, "The largely untold truth is that Canada and terrorism go together."
A publicly released CSIS report, Terrorism 2000/2001, confirmed that some 60 terrorists groups are active in Canada. These include Hezbollah and other Shiite Islamic terrorist organizations; a number of Sunni Islamic extremist groups, with ties to operatives in Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Lebanon, and Iran, including Hamas; the Tamil Tigers; the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK); all of the world's Sikh terrorists groups, as well as the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
In the French-speaking separatist Province of Quebec, Montreal police compare their city to a "Club Med" for Algerian extremists, who use the Quebec capital as a base to plan and finance their activities. In the Fall of 1999, police broke up an Algerian crime ring, which was using their proceeds to bankroll the Armed Islamic Group.
Canada-based terrorists have been involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, assassinations in India, and the Al Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia. In 1997, Gazi Abrahim Abu Mezer, a terrorist living in Canada, was intercepted just before he attempted to blow up the New York City subway system.
The case of the Algerian native charged with attempting to conduct terrorist acts in Seattle, Washington during the turn of the century Millennium celebrations is instructive, highlighting the ease with which those bent on mayhem operate in our northern neighbor.
In 1999, shortly before Christmas, U.S. Customs officials arrested 32-year old Ahmed Ressam as he tried to enter Washington State at a remote border crossing from Victoria, British Columbia. The trunk of his car was loaded with nitroglycerin and other bomb-making material. Ressam had reservations at a hotel near Seattle's Space Needle, where millennium festivities were scheduled to take place. Rassam had been declared a terrorist in his native Algeria and entered Canada in 1994 on a false French passport.
Later, after his refugee claim was denied and he was ordered deported, he simply disappeared. Ressam continued to work in Canada and associated with other extremists. Twice arrested and convicted for theft in Montreal, once again he was not deported. Using an alias, he secured a baptismal certificate and was then issued a Canadian passport, even though he had been arrested and fingerprinted. Fortunately, U.S. Customs authorities in Port Angeles, Washington, detained him on a hunch - were they guilty of "profiling"? - and discovered the cache of explosives in his auto.
Canada is attractive to terrorists for a number of reasons:
1. Its long borders and coastlines offer many points of entry, easing movement to and from various sites around the world, including the United States.
2. Canada accepts large numbers of poorly screened immigrants and "refugees." A network of immigrant communities has sprung up all across Canada, offering safe haven and other forms of support for criminals and terrorists.
3. Canada's liberal government allows terrorist groups to raise funds as charitable organizations.
4. Canada has proven to be a relatively secure base from which to arrange and direct terrorists in other countries.
Although U.S. officials have long been aware of the threat to national security and community safety posed by the lax Canadian immigration policies, little has been done to secure our side of the border. The Border Patrol generally stations 300 or fewer agents along the 3,500-mile U.S.-Canadian border. In addition to terrorists, illegal aliens and drug smugglers regularly enter the U.S. from Canada. Since Mexican nationals can enter Canada without visas, many have found it is cheaper for them to fly to Canada and walk across the Northern Border than have smugglers bring them across the U.S. Southern Border.
The majority of Canadians have not welcomed the transformation of their country into a base for criminal and terrorists. As in the United States, direction of Canada's immigration administration has been seized by a coalition of religious, ethnic, and business special interests. Under the banner of "fighting racism" and "embracing multi-culturalism and diversity," these enemies of the historic Canadian Majority are attempting to virtually outlaw opposition to current immigration policy.
While President Bush has been joined by other "world leaders" in a pledge to "fight terrorism", there is as yet no evidence that United States and Canadian officials are willing to take basic steps to actually deal with the immigration-associated issues that have played such a critical role in making our societies vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Such measures would include expelling illegal aliens and supporters of foreign terrorist groups; overhauling refugee policy; and ending Third World immigration generally.
Foreign and domestic policies should be based on what is good for the majority of citizens and the historic character of our nation and civilization. Until Majority Rule is restored in our respective countries, Americans and Canadians will be pawns in the terrorists' game.
To sum it up, basically a lot of people were hurting economically (one spouse got laid off, etc.) and then to get called upto active duty and get paid much less for the same job (airport security, border patrol, etc.) than the civilians standing right next to them has soured a lot of them to staying in the NG/Reserves.