Here is a link to the transcript of that hearing, in its entirety:
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju30548.000/hju30548_0f.htm
The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!
If our government’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!
All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!
We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.
This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!
You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
Do We Still Need Our Armed Forces When We Don’t Secure Our Own Borders?
Why
does our nation have military services? Why are we spending so much
money on nuclear-powered submarines–both the “boomers” the huge
submarines that carry ballistic missiles and the attack submarines that
are supposed to hunt down and destroy vessels of adversarial nations?
Why do we have nuclear aircraft carriers–the floating airfields for
supersonic fighter aircraft, and the battle groups that accompany them
to oceans across the planet?
Why do we have stealth bombers?
Why do we have tanks and other land-based weapons?
You may wonder why I am asking these questions, but I hope that you
will quickly see that I have not become a pacifist or a foe of our
military. In fact, I am in awe of the gallantry demonstrated by
America’s soldiers of all of our military services who routinely go in
harm’s way on behalf of our nation and our citizens. Our nation owes
these Americans a debt that can never be fully repaid.
I have always believed that successful negotiations should always be
conducted from a position of strength and our military certainly
provides our nation with considerable strength when dealing with
adversaries.
The point is that our military is supposed to exist to protect our nation from our enemies.
Here is the problem: Our nation’s borders only exist on maps., and in
reality often serve as little more than “speed bumps” that fail to
deter unknown millions of illegal aliens whose true identities,
backgrounds, possible affiliation with criminal and/or terrorist
organizations are unknown and unknowable.
When our troops headed for Iraq, in the wake of the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001 they were accompanied by our United States Border
Patrol agents and especially by members of the elite BORTAC Units. Our
military officers certainly understood that it was absolutely essential
that the borders of Iraq be secured against the entry of insurgents and
terrorists to protect our troops and the civilian population of Iraq.
Our military leaders certainly understood that national security, at
least for Iraq depended on border security!
Why then were the borders of the United States not similarly protected?
The purpose of an effective military force is to prevent adversaries
from attacking the country for which that military serves. Generally
the military mission is carried out at great distances from the nation
they protect. These operations my well take these valiant soldiers to
the far corners of the globe. However, if the goal is to prevent the
bad guys from attacking our nation- with an open border and millions of
foreign nationals present in our country, how is our government planning
to protect our nation and our citizens from terrorists, spies and
transnational gang members that may act cooperatively with one another
against the best interests of our nation?
Here are the first several paragraphs of this fascinating account of
this case that could have served as the script for a James Bond film:
George John Dasch and the Nazi Saboteurs
Shortly after midnight on the morning of June 13, 1942, four men
landed on a beach near Amagansett, Long Island, New York from a German
submarine, clad in German uniforms and bringing ashore enough
explosives, primers, and incendiaries to support an expected two-year
career in the sabotage of American defense-related production. On June
17, 1942, a similar group landed on Ponte Vedra Beach, near
Jacksonville, Florida, equipped for a similar career in industrial
disruption.
The purpose of the invasions was to strike a major blow for
Germany by bringing the violence of war to our home ground through
destruction of America’s ability to manufacture vital equipment and
supplies and transport them to the battlegrounds of Europe; to strike
fear into the American civilian population; and to diminish the resolve
of the United States to overcome our enemies.
By June 27, 1942, all eight saboteurs had been arrested without
having accomplished one act of destruction. Tried before a military
commission, they were found guilty. One was sentenced to life
imprisonment, another to 30vyears, and six received the death penalty,
which was carried out within a few days.
The magnitude of the euphoric expectation of the Nazi war machine
may be judged by the fact that, in addition to the large amount of
material brought ashore by the saboteurs, they were given $175,200 in
United States currency to finance their activities. On apprehension, a
total of $174,588 was recovered by the FBI—the only positive
accomplishment of eight trained saboteurs in those two weeks was the
expenditure of $612 for clothing, meals, lodging, and travel, as well as
a bribe of $260.
So shaken was the German intelligence service that no similar
sabotage attempt was ever again made. The German naval high command did
not again allow a valuable submarine to be risked for a sabotage
mission.
This fascinating FBI report contained many more facts- and, in some
ways, what happened back then, closely parallels the way that our nation
faces the threat of terrorist attacks today. Consider how we have seen
instances where immigrants from Middle Eastern countries have been
enticed into attending training camps in the Middle East to learn how to
attack the United States.
Consider these three additional paragraphs:
During the early months of the war, the major
contributions of the United States to oppose the Nazi war machine
involved industrial production, equipment, and supplies furnished to
those forces actively defending themselves against the German armed
forces. That industrial effort was strong enough to generate
frustration, perhaps indignation, among the Nazi high command; and the
order was given, allegedly by Hitler himself, to mount a serious effort
to reduce American production.German intelligence settled on sabotage as the most effective
means of diminishing our input. In active charge of the project was
Lieutenant Walter Kappe, attached to Abwehr-2 (Intelligence 2) who had
spent some years in the United States prior to the war and had been
active in the German-American Bund and other efforts in the United
States to propagandize and win adherents for Nazism among German
Americans and German immigrants in America. Kappe was also an official
of the Ausland Institute, which, prior to the war, organized Germans
abroad into the Nationalsozialistiche Deutshe Arbeiterpartei, the NSDAP
or Nazi Party, and during the conflict, Ausland kept track of and in
touch with persons in Germany who had returned from abroad. Kappe’s
responsibility concerned those who had returned from the United States.Early in 1942, he contacted, among others, those who ultimately
undertook the mission to the United States. Each consented to the task,
apparently willingly, although unaware of the specific assignment. Most
of the potential saboteurs were taken from civilian jobs, but two were
in the German army.
The apprehension of these eight would-be saboteurs prevented a potentially serious attack against our nation.
On September 11, 2001 our nation was attacked by 19 terrorists who
inflicted as many immediate casualties on our nation as were inflicted
by the Japanese Navy on our nation at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
(I use the term “immediate casualties” because thousands of more
victims were made ill by the toxins they were exposed to when the World
Trade Center collapsed. Many more victims died as a result of their
exposure to these toxins and others have suffered horrible debilitating
illnesses from those same toxins.)
In the aftermath of the attack at Pearl Harbor, our nation quickly
geared up to meet the enemy head on. No challenge was too great! Fleets
of naval ships of all sorts were rushed into production. ”Liberty
Ships” were produced in record numbers and in mere weeks to keep the sea
lanes open to Europe to ferry supplies to our allies and our troops.
Fleets of aircraft were constructed such as the B-17, B-24, B-25 and
B-29 bombers with now legendary names such as the “Flying Fortress,”
“Liberator” and “Super Fortress” rolling off the production lines along
with a wide array of fighter aircraft including the storied P-51
Mustang. With available labor in such short supply, American women took
up tools on the production lines to build those planes. This was how
the nickname “Rosie the Riveter” came to be!
Working in close cooperation with our allies, radar installations
were produced and aircraft carriers were, for the first time, equipped
with steam-driven catapults to hurl heavy aircraft skyward.
Our nation rushed the first nuclear weapons into production with brand new and unproven technology.
No challenge was too great, no obstacle was too high!
“Can do!” became America’s resounding motto!
In all of 44 months the war was over!
Today when surveys are conducted and our high school graduates are
asked about the Second World War, many cannot even identify the
countries America and her allies defeated. This is not only shameful
but worrisome. The study of history can prevent us from making the same
costly mistakes repeatedly. Where national security is concerned, the
costs that are run up are both green and red.
Today our nation’s “War on Terror” grinds on. Expectations of
privacy and freedom that had been considered the birthright of every
American citizen under the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution has
become so diluted that it barely exists- all in the name of national
security.
Yet our borders don’t protect our nation from the entry of unknown
millions of illegal aliens and those among them who may be terrorists
and criminals, and their cargos of contraband that may well include
weapons of mass destruction.
Our dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy offers little resistance to
aliens who are intent on gaming that inept and corrupt system and many
of our nation’s politicians appear literally hell-bent on offering
United States citizenship to illegal aliens who cannot substantiate
their true identities or anything else of real significance about them.
I began what I hope will be a thought-provoking commentary by asking
about why we spend so much money on our military services and send so
many of our young men and women in harm’s way. The point to be made is
that on September 11, 2001 all of our soldiers, ships, aircraft and
other extremely costly hardware was utterly unable to prevent a horrific
attack on our nation when terrorists, not unlike the Imperial Japanese
Navy killed approximately three thousand innocent victims. There are
significant differences, however. I have been to Pearl Harbor and it is
a beautiful place- but at the time of the attack nearly 70 years ago,
Hawaii was not even a state of the United States.
On September 11, 2001 the attacks were carried out in our nation’s
Capitol and in our nation’s, and the world’s, financial capital that the
World Trade Center represented.
Once terrorists or saboteurs enter the United States, our military
cannot do anything to stop them. Certainly our fighter planes might be
able to shoot down a hijacked airliner, if there is time, but even then
there will be many casualties on the plane and on the ground and hence,
the goal of the terrorists will have been accomplished–to strike fear in
our population.
The securing of our nation’s borders and the creation of an
immigration system that has real integrity and hence prevents terrorists
and transnational criminals from entering our country and then
successfully embedding themselves in our country must be seen as an
adjunct to the valiant efforts of those who wear the uniforms of our
armed services.
In the film, “The Godfather,” Al Pacino’s character famously advises,
“Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.” In point of fact that
bit of advice was first provided around 400 B.C. by a famous Chinese
general Sun-tzu in his book, “The Art of War.”
The advice is worth remembering, but not if you think “keeping our
enemies closer” means we should allow our enemies to enter our country.
The resolve of our gallant members of our nation’s armed forces must
be matched by the resolve of our nation’s leaders to protect our nation,
up close and in person, where our nation’s borders and immigration
system are concerned.
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