Thread: Good fences make good speeches, not secure borders

http://link.toolbot.com/unionleader.com/78511

Roger Simon: Good fences make good speeches, not secure borders
By ROGER SIMON

Thursday, May. 10, 2007

I was shocked to learn Wednesday that of the six men who were recently arrested for planning a terrorist attack on Fort Dix, not a single one came from Mexico.

What is going on here? I have been listening for months to presidential candidates from both parties talk about the need for "border security," including bigger and better fences along our border with Mexico, in order to prevent another terrorist attack on this country.

So what happens? We catch a bunch of alleged terrorists this week, and four of them were born in the former Yugoslavia, one was born in Jordan and one came from Turkey. Three were in the United States illegally, two had green cards making them permanent residents of this country and the sixth was a U.S. citizen.

There is no indication that any of them snuck over the border from Mexico or that a fence, barbed wire, guard dogs or vigilantes on that border would have kept them from gaining entry to this country.

And, if I recall correctly, the 19 terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks did not come from Mexico, either. Fifteen of them came from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt and one was from Lebanon. (Anybody want to build a fence around those countries? I am sure Halliburton would like to bid on the job.)

But one suspects there is more to the demand for beefed-up "border security" than just a desire to protect the homeland. One suspects that some candidates might be talking in code.

Like when Mitt Romney told the crowd at a Republican straw poll in Memphis last year, "Can our borders be closed to the best and brightest but be totally open to those without skills and education?"

Was Romney talking about the Saudis who came to this country to blow up the World Trade Center? Or the Mexicans who come to this country to work?

John McCain, who co-sponsored immigration reform legislation with Ted Kennedy in 2005, is choosing his words carefully these days.

"We must secure our borders; they are broken," he said in Davenport, Iowa, in February. "We've seen the devastating effects of illegal immigration (in Arizona). We can't have people living in the country illegally. We're going to have to have a humane approach to this problem, but we certainly can't have people living in our country illegally, because it makes it more difficult for people to come to our country legally, the way that most of our parents and forebears came to this country."

The Democrats, too, are walking on eggshells. During the Democratic debate in Orangeburg, S.C., two weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was asked if she favored a "form of amnesty for illegal aliens."

Clinton replied: "Well, I'm in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, which includes tightening our border security, sanctioning employers who employ undocumented immigrants, helping our communities deal with the costs that come from illegal immigration, getting the 12 million or so immigrants out of the shadows. That's very important to me. After 9/11, we've got to know who's in this country."

Congress is scheduled to begin debating immigration reform once again next week, and a group of prominent Democratic senators led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released a statement about it Wednesday.

In the seven-paragraph statement, the word "tough" appears five times and the word "security" appears three times.

The words "citizenship," "guest worker," "legal status" and "permanent resident" never appear at all.

And you get the feeling that immigration reform is something both parties wish would just go away.

Building bigger fences is so much easier -- and more popular -- right now.

Roger Simon is the chief political columnist for Politico.com.

There is no indication that any of them snuck over the border from Mexico or that a fence, barbed wire, guard dogs or vigilantes on that border would have kept them from gaining entry to this country.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Brothers Charged in Terror Plot Lived Illegally in U.S. for 23 Years
Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Brothers Eljvir Duka, left, and Shain Duka are seen in an artist's drawing during a court appearance at the U.S. District Courthouse in Camden, N.J.
FORT DIX, N.J. — Three brothers charged in the alleged Fort Dix terror plot have been living illegally in the U.S. for more than 23 years and were accepted as Americans by neighbors and friends who had no idea they would scheme to attack military bases and slaughter GIs.

A federal law enforcement source confirmed to FOX News that the three — Dritan "Anthony" or "Tony" Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir "Elvis" Duka, 23 — also accumulated 19 traffic citations, but because they operated in "sanctuary cites," where law enforcement does not routinely report illegal immigrants to homeland security, none of the tickets raised red flags.

The brothers entered the United States near Brownsville, Texas, in 1984, the source said, which would put their ages at 1 to 6 when they crossed the border.

The source said there is no record of them entering by way of a regular border crossing, so they are investigating whether they were smuggled into the country.

The brothers plus three other suspects in the alleged plot — Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22; Serdar Tatar, 23; and, Agron Abdullahu, 24 — were ordered held without bail for a hearing Friday.

Fort Dix Terror Suspects' Lives Gave Few Clues About Alleged Plot Store Clerk Helps Feds Bust 6 in Alleged 'Jihad' Plot to Kill U.S. Soldiers at Fort Dix FOX Facts: Fort Dix Video
Safe at Home? Terror Plot Five were charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. military personnel; the sixth, Abdullahu, was charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigrants in obtaining weapons.

Four of the arrested men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one was born in Jordan and one came from Turkey, authorities said. Three were in the United States illegally; two had green cards allowing them to stay in this country permanently; and the sixth is a U.S. citizen.

Federal investigators are now checking whether the latter three lied on their immigration paperwork to remain in the United States.

One drove a cab, three were roofers. Another worked at a 7-Eleven and a sixth at a supermarket. Their alleged plot to attack Fort Dix was foiled by another blue-collar worker: a video store clerk.

The foreign-born Muslims are accused of planning to assault the Army base and slaughter scores of U.S. soldiers with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

The unidentified clerk is being credited with tipping off authorities in January 2006 after one of the suspects asked him to transfer a video to DVD that showed 10 men shooting weapons at a firing range and calling for jihad, prosecutors said.

"If we didn't get that tip," said U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, "I couldn't be sure what would happen." FBI agent J.P. Weis called the clerk the "unsung hero" of the case.

Authorities said there was no direct evidence connecting the men to any international terror organizations such as Al Qaeda. But several of them said they were ready to kill and die "in the name of Allah," prosecutors said in court papers.

• Click here to read the complaint (FindLaw pdf)

Weis said the U.S. is seeing a "brand-new form of terrorism," involving smaller, more loosely defined groups that may not be connected to Al Qaeda but are inspired by its ideology.

"These homegrown terrorists can prove to be as dangerous as any known group, if not more so. They operate under the radar," Weis said.

One of the suspects, Tatar, worked at his father's pizzeria — Super Mario's Restaurant — in Cookstown and made deliveries to the base, using the opportunity to scout out Fort Dix for an attack, authorities said.

"Clearly, one of the guys had an intimate knowledge of the base from having been there delivering pizzas," Christie said.

Tatar's father, Muslim Tatar, 54, said the accusations against his son were hard to accept.

"He is not a terrorist. I am not a terrorist," he told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

The elder Tatar told ABCNews he had gotten no indication his son harbored a deep hatred of the United States.

"I came here from Turkey in 1992, and this is my country. I love this country," Muslim Tatar told ABC.

FOX News has also learned that there were 19 traffic citations against the Duka brothers, but according to a federal law enforcement source, because they operated in so-called "sanctuary cites," where law enforcement does not routinely tell the Homeland Security Department about illegal immigrants in their towns, none of the tickets raised red flags.

The group often watched terror training videos, clips featuring Usama bin Laden, a tape containing the last will and testament of some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, and tapes of armed attacks on U.S. military personnel, authorities said.

The men trained by playing paintball in the woods in New Jersey and taking target practice at a firing range in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, where they had rented a house, authorities said.

"We believe they are their own cell," said Christie. "They are inspired by international terror organizations. I believe they saw themselves as part of that."

Fort Dix last was in the international spotlight in 1999, when it sheltered more than 4,000 ethnic Albanian refugees during the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

In addition to plotting the attack on Fort Dix, the defendants spoke of assaulting a Navy installation in Philadelphia during the annual Army-Navy football game and conducted surveillance at other military installations in the region, prosecutors said.

After the video clerk's tip, investigators said they infiltrated the group with two informants and bided their time while they secretly recorded the defendants.

The six were arrested Monday night trying to buy AK-47 assault weapons, M-16s and other weapons from an FBI informant, authorities said. It was not clear when the alleged attack was to take place.

"We had a group that was forming a platoon to take on an army. They identified their target, they did their reconnaissance. They had maps. And they were in the process of buying weapons. Luckily, we were able to stop that," said Weis.

The arrests renewed worries among New Jersey's Muslim community. Hundreds of Muslim men from New Jersey were rounded up and detained in the months after the 2001 terror attacks, but none were connected to that plot.

"If these people did something, then they deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law," said Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer who represented scores of detainees after the Sept. 11 attacks. "But when the government says `Islamic militants,' it sends a message to the public that Islam and militancy are synonymous."

"Don't equate actions with religion," he said.

Mario Tummillo lives near Tatar's father in Cookstown and said he worked with Tatar at the pizza parlor. Tummillo, 20, described Tatar as a religious man who "wasn't violent at all."

The restaurant's chef, Joseph Hofflinger, 35, quit after learning the owner was the father of one of the suspects.

"My son is in the 82nd Airborne," Hofflinger told ABC. "I won't work for a place that supports terrorism so I'm out."

FOX News' Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

It is possible a good border fence could have stopped three of the suspects and their mother and father who are also in the United States illegally. It looks like the family was smuggled in across the Mexican border.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270892,00.html

GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS

The US and its G-8 partners have built a fence around the resort town where they will meet next month..... hmmm, I thought fences and walls do NOT work?
see pic of the fence..
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 19,00.html