April 03, 2006

Immigration Reform is Defense Against 21st Century Warfare

I guess, historically speaking, things are improving. Warfare used to be conducted with armies; in the 21st century, nations try to conquer other countries by just immigrating to them and then instigating violence, and/or refusing to assimilate, from within the host nation. Here are a number of dramatic cases in point:

Berlin, Germany:

Violence at a Berlin school dominated by Arab and Turkish youths and the nearby slaying of police officer, shot in the head while trying to arrest muggers, has fuelled alarm that troubled parts of the German capital are lurching out of control.

Police have now been brought in to help control the situation at the Ruetli school in the immigrant-dominated Neukoelln district, with six officers checking students for weapons.

Teachers at the school published a letter this week widely interpreted as saying conditions at their school had become so bad that it should be closed down.

The letter said teachers had lost all authority and were now so afraid that they only entered classrooms with a mobile phone so they could call for help in an emergency.

"The mood ... is dominated by aggression, lack of respect and ignorance," said the letter, adding: "We have reached a dead end and there is no way to turn around."

Hillard, Ohio:

The Hilliard I grew up in was sleepy cowtown. As the son of one the local police officers (and my older brother would later follow him on the force), it was impossible to do anything serious without word quickly making its way back to my home, so I didn't even try. No one else did for that matter. The city was safe and relatively crime-free, except for the obligatory fight at the local bar every Friday night and the annual confiscation of the slot machines at the Moose Lodge. Back then, virtually every area of town was within a half-an-hour walk. While I was in high school, after classes I would walk across the street to the local library at the entrance to the City Park to study and to pass the time.

Today, that former library building is now a full-time Islamic school (K-8), Sunrise Academy, funded and operated by the local-area branch of the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus (ISGC) MAS has been identified by researchers and many media outlets (such as these recent articles in the Chicago Tribune and The Weekly Standard) as one of the U.S.front groups for the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood and funded by the extremist Saudi Wahhabi lobby. Hasan al-Banna, the Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, stated this as the organization's credo: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

Baltimore, Maryland, and Little Rock, Arkansas:

The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution

First in Europe and now in the United States, Muslim groups have petitioned to establish enclaves in which they can uphold and enforce greater compliance to Islamic law. While the U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to religious freedom and the prohibition against a state religion, when it comes to the rights of religious enclaves to impose communal rules, the dividing line is more nebulous. Can U.S. enclaves, homeowner associations, and other groups enforce Islamic law?

Such questions are no longer theoretical. While Muslim organizations first established enclaves in Europe,[1] the trend is now crossing the Atlantic. Some Islamist community leaders in the United States are challenging the principles of assimilation and equality once central to the civil rights movement, seeking instead to live according to a separate but equal philosophy. The Gwynnoaks Muslim Residential Development group, for example, has established an informal enclave in Baltimore because, according to John Yahya Cason, director of the Islamic Education and Community Development Initiative, a Baltimore-based Muslim advocacy group, "there was no community in the U.S. that showed the totality of the essential components of Muslim social, economic, and political structure."[2]

Baltimore is not alone. In August 2004, a local planning commission in Little Rock, Arkansas, granted The Islamic Center for Human Excellence authorization to build an internal Islamic enclave to include a mosque, a school, and twenty-two homes.[3] While the imam, Aquil Hamidullah, says his goal is to create "a clean community, free of alcohol, drugs, and free of gangs,"[4] the implications for U.S. jurisprudence of this and other internal enclaves are greater: while the Little Rock enclave might prevent the sale of alcohol, can it punish possession and in what manner? Can it force all women, be they residents or visitors, to don Islamic hijab (headscarf)? Such enclaves raise the fundamental questions of when, how, and to what extent religious practice may supersede the U.S. Constitution.

Various Cities, U.S.:

Prominent on display at demonstrations around the country supporting illegal immigration has been the flag of Mexico. The last time demonstrators waved the flag of a foreign government in American streets on such a scale was during the Vietnam War when New Leftists were championing the cause of North Vietnam against the United States. Those street people were mainly mush-brained college students whose ignorance of world affairs allowed them to be manipulated by their Marxist professors. This time is different. The protesters are not just advocating a foreign cause, they are part of it. Most of the Latino students boycotting classes in California and elsewhere should not be in those classes to begin with, since they have no legal right to even be in the United States. Indeed, their enrollment has generated a financial drain on state and local budgets across the country.

The costs of illegal immigration are intolerably high:

Nationally, the huge impact of illegal immigration on American health care has been well-documented. Years ago, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons published a lengthy report documenting how the increasing number of illegal aliens has forced the closure of hospitals and spread previously vanquished diseases such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, polio and dengue. Additionally, the report explains the huge cost of so-called anchor babies, which are born to illegal aliens and instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits.

Earlier this month the Federation for American Immigration Reform published results from various studies that detail how high levels of unpaid medical bills for illegal immigrants have forced local health care providers to reduce staffing, increase rates and cut back services. One of the studies says that in 2000 almost $190 million of southwest border hospitals' uncompensated costs were for emergency medical treatment for illegal aliens, with another $13 million in ambulance costs.

The good news is that this form of 21st century warfare is a lot easier to fight, than wars conducted via combat between traditional armies. All we have to do is:

• Learn to control our borders.
• Update our immigration policies so as to dramatically reduce immigration by Islamists who oppose their religion to the U.S. Constitution.
• Identify those in mosques who are preaching violence, and deport them.
  

Immigration reform is key to the future safety of the U.S. in response to this form of 21st century warfare.