All they needed to complete the farce were the huge black
sombreros with tassel fringe. Meeting in Waco, the new “three
amigos” — W, Canada’s Paul Martin, and Mexico’s Vicente Fox — got
together about a week ago to promise each other continued
cooperation. At the end, they announced a “Security and Prosperity
Partnership Initiative” which is supposed to stop the flow of
terrorists into all three nations, further increase the flow of
commerce across mutual borders, and increase cooperation on the
environment and bioterrorism. Forget Social Security for the
moment. This “continued cooperation” crisis is undeniable. Such
exercises in empty rhetoric have become a threat to our national
security. Doesn’t anyone in the White House know that you can’t
“continue” something that hasn’t yet begun? This new “initiative”
does much more harm than good, because it papers over serious
problems we have with our closest neighbors.
Take Canada, please. It is unfortunate (in so many ways) that
Pierre Trudeau came first. Had he not, Paul Martin could have been
Canada’s first “French” prime minister just as Lil’ Billy was
America’s first “black” president. Martin has been working hard to
achieve that status. Canada has opposed us at every turn on Iraq,
and Martin takes some perverse pride at having rejected Canadian
participation in ballistic missile defense. He’s performing exactly
as you’d expect the typical ecume d’etang Frenchman would.
Adding insult to injury, Martin said recently that before America
could defend itself from incoming ICBMs, we would have to get
Canada’s permission to shoot them down over the top of the world if
any of the debris might fall on Canadian turf. One of the senior
officers in what’s left of Canada’s military should remind Martin
of the principal principle our guys apply in defending America:
it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Which, for any
Quebecois who may read this, translates to, “shoot first and ask
questions later.”
Martin cares far more about our import restrictions on softwood
lumber and Canadian beef than about Iraq or border security. And,
like the Frenchmen he emulates, Martin believes there should be no
consequences for any political blows he chooses to land on W’s
chin. Canadian beef imports are banned due to outbreaks of bovine
spongiform encephalitis — “mad cow” disease — in Canada. The
president should urge the FDA to take its sweet time to determine
when those imports can resume. If beef prices rise, we can import
more from Australia which doesn’t suffer the testosterone shortage
that currently affects Canada. The softwood business should also
suffer our benign neglect while Martin remains in office. Which, we
hope most sincerely, won’t be past the coming elections. Martin is
a problem Canada has to solve for itself, and we can safely ignore
the tiresome North until it does. Mexico is another matter.
PRESIDENT BUSH HAS ALWAYS turned a blind eye to the problems of
Mexico. Now that he’s been reelected, he no longer needs to troll
the Rio Grande for votes. So why can’t he come to grips with the
fundamental fact that Mexico and Vicente Fox are a threat to our
national security? As much as I support our President, I have lost
patience with him on Mexico. It’s time to crack down on our
southern neighbor.
Vicente Fox — compared to whom Kofi Annan appears the soul of
propriety — has only one interest in the United States: we are the
dumping ground for his impoverished, his criminals, and anyone else
who may care to spend a few pesos in Mexico to escape it. It’s too
easy to get into Mexico (with forged passports that convert
citizenship and names from, for example, Jordanian and “Mr.
Zarqawi” to Colombian and “Senor Lopez”) and even easier to get
out. That we buy Mexican oil only makes him, and his cronies, feel
more secure. (That same fact emboldens Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, but
that is for next Monday.) Fox belittles the problem of terrorists
entering the U.S. from Mexico, his government distributes “how to”
booklets telling illegals how to get into the U.S. and stay here
and he speaks loudly in support of environmental whackos who oppose
completing the fence-and-wall structure across the
Mexico-California border. Now, he’s threatening to use U.S. courts
to stop citizens groups from patrolling some border crossings
peacefully. Fox says these groups are — contrary to the reports
I’ve heard — hunting and killing illegal immigrants.
President Bush almost agreed with Fox. He said, “I’m against
vigilantes in the United States of America.” Everyone shares that
sentiment, but when the government isn’t controlling the border —
and when the President seems uninterested in doing so — citizens
who remain within the law and only report illegals crossing the
border to the authorities seem like a pretty good idea. To everyone
except W and Fox, that is.
Vicente Fox will be out of office in about another year. By
failing — yet again — to demand that Fox stop the flow of
illegals into the U.S., President Bush has assured that the next
Mexican president will come into office expecting to continue Fox’s
practices without reproach or consequences from Washington. Because
President Bush has failed, Congress needs to act. It should send
the President and Fox a clear message: no “immigration” reform
until Mexico stops the flow of illegals into the U.S. No “bracero”
temporary worker programs, no nothing. Meanwhile, we’ll do
everything we can — up to and including using force — to bar the
entry of illegals into the U.S. We should complete the fence along
the California border, and put many guys with large guns all along
the border to enforce it. If Judge Chertoff is at all serious about
Homeland Security, this should be among his top three
priorities.
In the original Three Amigos, our heroes went to a
Mexican town to perform their Hollywood act, and were shocked to
find that the banditos they encountered in mid-yippee were using
real bullets. Somebody ought to slip that DVD into W’s player
tonight.
TAS contributing editor Jed Babbin is the author
of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are
Worse Than You Think (Regnery, 2004).
