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Mexico: The next Lebanon?
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© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
We've all heard and read the reports recently about how the Mexican government is actively promoting illegal migration into the United States – even providing survival kits to those intending to cross the Rio Grande and make their way to the "promised land."
Mexico makes little or no effort to police its border with the U.S. It minimizes the threat the refugees pose to the United States. It even suggests its overflow population should be welcomed into the U.S.
Therefore, a recent news item originating in the San Diego Union-Tribune was something of a shocker for several reasons.
Mexico's National Security Adviser Adolfo Aguilar Zinser made the sensational announcement that Islamic terrorist organizations have a presence along the U.S. border and may be making contacts with Mexican guerrilla groups.
"We have evidence that organizations or people linked to Islamic organizations could have a presence here or be passing through," Zinser told a local radio program. Though declining to identify the specific groups, he also said the groups could have indigenous guerrilla ties.
The announcement was not intended to alarm U.S. authorities, but rather to quell fears in Mexico about the possibility of guerrilla attacks.
"Our duty is to find them and send [them] away from the country so they don't put roots down here or try to use our territory as a haven," he explained.
While Zinser wouldn't name names, the newspaper El Universal and other Mexican dailies did. They said the Islamic militants trying to form a base of operations in Mexico are tied to Hezbollah, the Syrian and Iranian-backed terrorists who established a base in Lebanon and have used it ever since to launch rocket and guerrilla attacks on Israel's northern border.
And, despite the reassuring words of Zinser, the Mexican media reports make clear the true purpose of the Islamic terrorists in the country – to carry out guerrilla activities in the United States. But even Zinser acknowledged the potential threat to the U.S.
"The geographical proximity with the United States puts us on alert so that we are not the passing-through point for any of these organizations," he said.
Because this report got little media attention in the United States – and next to none in areas far from the border – it is safe to say this is an issue not on the radar screen in Washington. But it's clear to me that the Islamic terrorists currently focusing their attention on destroying Israel are taking their fight to what they consider the ultimate enemy – "the Great Satan" of the United States.
Let me tell you, folks, this is not an enemy the U.S. Border Patrol can handle.
There's been debate in a few circles lately about whether it's time to use the U.S. military to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the U.S. from south of the border. I've never been one to suggest the U.S. military needs more deployments. It is already vastly over-deployed. And there is always a civil liberties threat when the U.S. military deploys on domestic soil.
But the one true objective of the U.S. military – the one defined by the U.S. Constitution – is to defend the borders of the country.
Personally, I think this is a much more sensible deployment than those in Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti and dozens of other remote places the U.S. acts as policeman of the world.
Meanwhile, as our troops patrol borders in these and other countries, our own borders are as porous as a sieve.
The illegal immigration into the United States in recent years has had devastating effects on the infrastructure of our country. It has been a demoralizing factor for millions of Americans – especially those who live closest to the problems.
But all that is nothing compared to the horror and anguish that Americans will experience when the first truck bomber makes it across the border and delivers his load at a vulnerable U.S. target. It's nothing compared to the terror Americans will experience when the first airliner is blown out of the sky by hand-held, guided, American-made Stinger missiles from south of the border – or north. It's nothing compared to the anger Americans will experience when Katyusha rockets start hitting American cities the way they routinely hit Israeli towns in Galilee.
Sound far-fetched? With so little attention on Mexico, it could well become America's Lebanon.
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Joseph Farah is editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily.com and writes a daily column. |
