Open Borders Don't Equal Safety

Reuters: Leaders failing to keep America safe: report---

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than four years after the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration and Congress have failed to take the urgent steps needed to protect the country, the former September 11 Commission said in a scathing final report on Monday.

The former commissioners -- who wrote the seminal 2004 analysis of what went wrong before and after the 2001 hijacked plane attacks -- said the U.S. was still vulnerable to terrorism.

It should, for example, make it a top national security priority to prevent weapons of mass destruction from getting into the hands of terrorists, and still needs to improve disaster response, the former commissioners said as they summed up how their recommendations have been carried out.

Which is why we are in Iraq. Is that a difficult concept to grasp? How would Liberals prefer we do it? Send out anonymous questionnaires? "Check A. if you have WMD." "Check C. if you wish to remain anonymous." "Have a nice day."

"We believe that the terrorists will strike again. So does every responsible expert that we have talked to," former September 11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean told a news conference.

"We are safer, but we are not yet safe. Four years after 9/11, we are not as safe as we could be. And that is unacceptable," said Kean, a Republican former governor. "While the terrorists are learning and adapting, our government is still moving at a crawl."

Commission member Timothy Roemer, a Democratic former congressman, asked, "When will our government wake up to this challenge? Al Qaeda is quickly changing and we are not."

Responding to the former commissioners' report, Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, defended the administration's security record and pointed out there had not been an attack in the United States since September 11.

But, he added, "We can't rest on our laurels." He told ABC's "Good Morning America". "We need to do more. ... Congress needs to do more."

After 9/11, I never believed we would go four years without another attack. We are safer than we were, but there are many measures the government needs to take to keep us safer still.

The biggest issue is our borders. The Bush Administration has basically issued engraved invitations to illegals, telling them to feel free to cross the border! We will not be safe until we know the borders are inpenetrable.

If poor, illiterate, non-English speaking Mexicans can cross the border and disappear in to the United States without detection, then there must be well-funded, educated, English-speaking terrorists doing the same thing. Only, they might be bringing WMDs into our country.

We won't be safe until no one can invade our porous border. We need to seal it off . . . and shoot first, ask questions later.