Thread: No threat: DHS scrambles to finish border fence,no terrorist

No threat: DHS scrambles to finish border fence although no terrorists found in Mexico

September 17, 2008 - 8:24PM
The United States and Mexico both released reports last week stating that no suspected terrorists targeting the United States have been found in Mexico since Sept. 11, 2001. Nor has anyone been found in Mexico who had any ties to al-Qaida. And yet we continue to build walls and bray about terrorists flowing over our southern border.

The Associated Press on Friday reported that in response to a public information request, the Mexican Attorney General's Office reported 12 suspected terrorists had been arrested in that country since the date of the attacks on the U.S. Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Of those 12, some had ties to Basque militants in Spain; the rest were extremists focused on Mexican targets.

U.S. officials supported the Mexican government's information, acknowledging that they didn't know of any person or group in Mexico that had indicated any intent to cause harm within the United States.

"There's no indication that there's been a direct al-Qaida presence in Mexico," Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke told The AP on Friday.

Twelve suspected terrorists actually seems a low number, given Mexico's problems dealing with increasingly violent drug wars and mercenary kidnappings. Armed anti-government groups such as the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, continue to operate in Southern Mexico.

This admitted lack of a terrorist threat from Mexico is significant as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently announced that it needed an immediate injection of $400 million to continue construction of the supposed anti-terrorist fence it continues to build along the U.S.-Mexican border. That includes the remaining parts of the fence that have yet to be erected toward the eastern end of the Rio Grande Valley.

And officials concede that this addition probably won't be enough to complete the fence, especially by the end of this year as they are scrambling to do.

DHS has already spent some $2.7 billion on the work it's done on the fence so far.

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff conceded last week that there was no known threat of crime from Mexico, but insisted that it could happen.

"These enterprises (Mexican drug cartels) may currently be criminal enterprises, but we cannot rule out the possibility in the future that they may take on a more political coloration," he said at during a Sept. 10 speech on international terrorism.

The department has also made clear that it isn't going to wait for Congress to appropriate the funds. They plan to shuffle away money that was allocated for electronic surveillance and manpower - the very thing that is most effective in monitoring our border - and divert it to the costs of the fence.

With no threat over seven years, it's easy to ask why they're in such a rush to get this thing built by year's end. The apparent answer is that they probably expect a new president and Congress to be less eager to continue funding a fence that has proven divisive but has not proven effective.

Chances are that border security was never the primary goal of this barrier. With moderate candidates for both major parties on the presidential ballot, the administration might well have seen this as a way to assure that hard-line nationalist Republicans will turn out to vote in November. Without them the party's chances to keep possession of the White House are drastically reduced.

Could the primary goal of the fence builders be not to capture any bad guys, but to capture votes? We wouldn't put it past them.


http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/articl ... rists.html

WILL SEE!

Barack will give the order to tear the fence down.

Originally Posted by Rockfish

Barack will give the order to tear the fence down.

Wouldn't be surprising. He wants to be the great citizen of the world.