If you’re building a fence to stop terrorists, you’re looki
http://www.thestate.com/mld/state/news/ ... 830510.htm
Posted on Fri, Jun. 16, 2006
If you’re building a fence to stop terrorists, you’re looking north
By MIKE FITTS
Associate Editor
OK, WHERE is the outcry for the northern fence?
One of the main arguments for a border fence — always cited gravely and without support, as if it is self-evident — is that after 9/11, America must be more vigilant about our borders. Wicked people mean us harm, you know.
If you go by the actual evidence involving actual wicked people, however, you have to build your fence between the United States and Canada, not on the Mexican border.
The recent arrests of 17 Islamist terrorism suspects in Canada made headlines, but it’s not the first time that Canada has been considered a venue for international terrorists:
• A man linked to al-Qaida was arrested in 1999 in Washington state after getting off a ferryboat. He was transporting a carload of explosives to be delivered to al-Qaida operatives in the United States who planned to bomb millennium celebrations. It wasn’t any kind of elaborate counterespionage that tripped up Ahmed Ressam: He was caught by a Customs agent who thought he looked too nervous.
• Groups such as the Tamil Tigers, the Sri Lankan group that brought suicide bombing to the world’s attention, and Hezbollah reportedly have been able to organize supporters, taking advantage of Canada’s pride in taking in refugees and asylum-seekers.
• Canadian officials have been loath to conduct a huge post-9/11 revision of their immigration laws; doing so would be unpopular in a country that likes to emphasize its liberality compared to the United States — and President Bush. They also have sought to correct the mistaken perception that some of the 9/11 hijackers came into the United States from Canada; despite early speculation, none of them actually did.
None of this makes a good case for building a fence along the dry part of our 5,000-mile border (those Great Lakes would be a bit of a problem, too). But there’s more evidence for doing so, based on terrorism worries, than has been bandied about concerning Mexico.
Federal authorities have commented only to say that they know al-Qaida sees Mexico as an available entryway into the United States — but clearly, there is more reason to say that of Canada! An al-Qaida operative was caught smuggling explosives across the border.
My point is not to bash the Canadians, but to highlight the use of the terror argument to silence, rather than enlighten, the debate. Mexico is hinted at as a threat. How serious? The government can’t explain. Secret, serious stuff, you know. Even articles pandering to the anti-immigration crowd admit that no Islamist terrorists have been spotted in Mexico.
To question this implication is to risk being considered un-serious about the threat of another 9/11-style terrorist strike in the United States. It is important that we take that risk seriously, especially as 9/11 recedes almost five years into the past. But taking it seriously means evaluating threats based on our best idea of the risks involved. When the threat of the Mexican border is invoked in the immigration debate, it is simply being used to put critics on the defensive and to highlight the nativists’ belief that this country is subject to “invasion” from the south.
I have to bring up one other aspect of the terror-from-Mexico theory: Does this theory get additional credence in some areas because of brown skin? Do some folks imagine that al-Qaida operatives from the Middle East or south Asia will be able to move seamlessly through Mexico because of their appearance? I think most Hispanics would find that hilarious.
It is far more likely that Islamists could hide in cosmopolitan Toronto.
I don’t mean to disparage all folks who believe that a fence is needed. I have read arguments for it that are credible and thoughtful, and based on our need to better control the border to contain illegal immigration. Those arguments are legitimately made, yet I don’t find them persuasive.
The United States is a fundamentally open society — as is Canada. To continue our prosperity and freedom, we have to remain such an open society while protecting ourselves, not hunker down behind barbed wire. To build a fence along the entire Mexican border would do more than just build an imposing new structure; it would change the definition of the country — just as a fence between the United States and Canada would.
The fence as a barrier to illegal immigration is a topic of legitimate debate. The terrorism argument is a red herring.
Perhaps I’m not giving the Bush administration enough credit for cleverness on the fence debate; there might be plans within plans. They could be outsourcing the fence project.
Perhaps the whole object of our caustic rhetoric on borders is to create so much annoyance in our neighbors that they will build the fences for us — and on their sides of the border, to boot.
Ambassador David Wilkins, who has ruffled feathers in Canada, could wake up one morning to find 10-foot-high chicken wire newly surrounding his spectacular residence in Ottawa.
Outside, of course, Canadians would go about their business as if nothing had changed.
Write to Mr. Fitts at mfitts@thestate.com.
