Hi Gang:
Today's edition of the online CNN website contains a news report that, when you stop to give it a bit of thought should leave you furious.
The date of the article is September 6, 2011. This is just 5 days before the 10th anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attacks ever carried out within the borders of our nation and, arguably the worst attacks ever carried out anywhere in the world. The article reports on how the Governor of New Mexico is now considering changes in the procedures by which driver's licenses are issued.
I would remind you that after our nation was attacked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 our nation responded immediately and decisively. Working in close cooperation with our allies we immediately built fleets of a wide variety of ships that had never existed before and fleets of aircraft that had never existed before. New weapons systems were created and rushed into production. Radar installations were created and even nuclear weapons were created and deployed. All of this was accomplished in just 44 months.
Yet changes by the process by which driver's licenses are issued in New Mexico are still being contemplated?
Consider this passage from the news article I have Provided below:
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But critics say the practice is turning New Mexico into a magnet for fraud.
“Currently, illegal immigrants from all over the country come to New Mexico to obtain a license without having the intention of staying here,” said Demesia Padilla, the state's secretary of taxation and revenue.
Some scofflaws sell their residency information. One woman, Rosa Pardo-Marrufo, confessed to allowing her address to be used — charging up to $700 for each application. She was arrested in 2009 and is serving 10 years in prison for fraud.
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The terrorists who transformed four crowded airliners into macabre cruise missiles and used those improvised instruments of death to slaughter more than 3,000 innocent victims, destroy one of the most iconic complex of buildings, inflict grave damage to the Pentagon, the seat of leadership for our nation's 5 military services, and bring death and destruction to a bucolic field in rural Pennsylvania were all aliens who had successfully gamed the process by which visas are issued to aliens. They also managed to create multiple false identities for themselves to conceal their true identities and to also conceal their movements around our country as they prepared to carry out those horrific attacks.
The 9/11 Commission determined that among the ways that the terrorists created false identities and variations of identities in furtherance of their deadly goals was to obtain drivers licenses.
Today our government spends billions of dollars each and every year in an effort to prevent would be terrorists from boarding airliners and bringing weapons onboard those airliners to repeat the tactic of using hijacked airliners as weapons of mass destruction. Many of the expensive devices and tactics are of dubious value and the traveling public is becoming more and more frustrated with the increasingly intrusive nature of searches. When we seek to board an airliner we are required to remove our shoes because it has been determined that shoes can contain explosives- consider the case of Richard Reid, the so-called “Shoe Bomber,” a citizen of Great Britain who did not need to obtain a visa before traveling to the United States because Great Britain is one of 36 countries that now participate in the insane Visa Waiver Program. Other British subjects had found a way to turn seemingly harmless liquids into binary bombs where mixing two chemicals onboard an airliner would yield an extremely potent explosive.
The intrusive searches are supposed to keep terrorists from concealing all sorts of weapons and explosives.
However, how about those determined terrorists who conceal something of equal or potentially greater significance- their true identities?
Our government has created a “No Fly” list in an effort to keep terrorists off of airliners. Those lists are generally name-based which means that any terrorist who can conceal his (her) true identity can most likely circumvent this screening process.
Driver's licenses in false names are also essential for terrorists and criminals who seek to rent apartments, open bank accounts and conduct other such business transactions and create a patina of credibility. Driver's licenses are also used as a way of screening those who seek to enter corporate and government office buildings.
While illegal aliens who are not engaged in other crimes apart from their violations of immigration don't create an immediate threat to the lives of our citizens and lawful immigrants, they are doing jobs that many of our citizens and lawful immigrants would very much want to have. Large numbers of illegal aliens also make use of various businesses that enable them to conduct their day to day lives in our country while remaining under the radar. These establishments are also of great value to the criminals and terrorists who are present in our country plying their respective “trades.”
One of the first things a law enforcement officer does when he arrests a suspect is to photograph and fingerprint that person. This is done in an effort to determine the true identity of that suspect. Bed guys use multiple false identities- they use false identities as a means of creating camouflage much the same way that a chameleon uses changes in coloration to hide in plain sight. When criminals and terrorists are able to create false identities for themselves they place the residents of the communities in which they live and operate at risk.
The most likely victim of the crimes and violence committed by transnational criminals are the members of the immigrant communities of the same ethnicity as the criminal. This is true in the Latino communities as well as in the European, Russian, Asian, Caribbean and African communities.
A final point- we need to dispel the myth that those who want illegal aliens to get driver's licenses are “pro-immigrant.” That statement is nonsense! Immigrants are most at risk when illegal aliens are able to conceal their true identities!
Please check out a commentary I posted on my website a couple of months ago that was entitled:
“New York MS-13 Gang Members Plead Guilty to Murder and Racketeering”
Here is the link to that commentary:
Please pay particular attention to the victims who were killed by the MS-13 gang member discussed in this case.
A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!
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our country is to survive and if our children and their children are to get their share of the “American Dream” the citizens of this nation must take their citizenship seriously!
We the People must be the best citizens we can be, citizens who are worthy of the gallantry demonstrated by our valiant men and women in the military, law enforcement and firefighters, who routinely go in harm's way in defense of this nation and our citizens.
My goal in writing this and other commentaries is to point out our nations many failings before more victims pay the ultimate price for the incompetence and ineptitude of our government.
The first step in problem-solving is to first identify the problems and vulnerabilities and then devise strategies to overcome them.
If you find yourself to be in agreement with this commentary, I ask that you forward it to as many of your friends and family members as possible and encourage them to do the same. We need to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”
The practice of good citizenship does not end in the voting booth, it only begins there.
The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!
The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians. I implore you to get involved!
I believe our nation's is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world. However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels or members of other transnational gangs or members of al-Qaeda!
If our government's failures to secure our nation's borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!
All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!
We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.
This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!
You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
-michael cutler-
Additionally- this summer, on Friday afternoons from 4:00 PM until 5:00 PM Eastern Daylight Savings Time, I will be filling in for Tom Garcia as the host on The USA Talk Radio Network's excellent radio show, “The American Hour.”
I hope you will be joining me on Fridays this summer!
Here is the link for this program:
