Posted on 05/18/2005 3:16:34 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
The United States, Canada and Mexico should establish a common security perimeter to guard against terrorism in North America, a tri-national independent task force said in a report released on Tuesday.
The countries should police their borders together to help border trade, allow easier movement of citizens and to keep out potential security threats, the task force said at New York's Council on Foreign Relations.
"If our two borders, the one between Canada and the United States and the U.S. and Mexico, became a frontline for security the impact that would have on normal relations and economic relations would be profound," said co-chairman John Manley, a former Canadian deputy prime minister and minister of finance.
The task force was sponsored by private groups in each of the three countries including the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, and there was no indication that governments would act on the proposals.
The report, titled "Building a North American Community," also called for free movement within the continent for citizens through a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers and other measures to increase economic and military cooperation between the countries.
William Weld, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, and Pedro Aspe, former finance minister of Mexico, were the other co-chairmen of the task force, comprised of over 20 experts from government, business and academia.
Manley contrasted the scrutiny of goods flowing between Canada and the United States with a lax attitude to imports arriving at shipping ports.
"As I told my one-time U.S. counterpart (U.S. Homeland Security chief) Tom Ridge once, 'You inspect a grain car entering the U.S. from Saskatchewan closer than you do container traffic coming into the United States from the Middle East.' And I think that's still the case."
Other recommendations included improving labor mobility, developing an energy strategy with greater emphasis on reducing harmful emissions and establishing an investment fund to build infrastructure to connect Mexico's poorer regions in the South to the market of the North.
Can you refresh my memory? When did we invade, conquer, and take over any soverign nation and apply our constitution to it?
Globalism Lite - our neighbors want us to protect them. Neither has the will and means to do it for themselves. We've got enough border to protect, without taking care of them as well.
Was that supposed to have been "spanning" or "spanking". ;-)
"Border? You don't need no stinkin' border!"
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
1. The act of invading; the act of encroaching upon the rights or possessions of another; encroachment; trespass.
Euopean Union tried that and now its economy is sinking. North American Union? No thanks. We have enlugh illegal immigrants as it is.
This is going to send Michael Savage over the edge.
Bingo. This is about big business and profits. Nothing more, nothing less.
I'll be honest and say that that idea has crossed my mind. A lot of oil down there in Mexico. But no one would support it, so, forget it.
Canada is too lenient in accepting potential terrorists into their country and Mexico is to0 corrupt and incompetent to be trusted. NO THANKS!
If we invaded Mexico or Canada, our own enviro whacko's would immediately demand we shut down the oilfields, so it probably ain't worth invading either.
as a degreed classical historian who concentrated on the Roman Empire, and having been aware since 1990 of the demographic statistics south of our border, I am none too pleased with Dubya's continuing love-affair with Vincente Fox, nor with the Federal and State governments' refusals to effectively control the border.
perhaps we SHOULD publicly send emissaries to the Israeli Embassy in DC, and entreat them to build a fence for us?
"create a greater US spaning the entire Northern Hemisphere. That would certainly fix the problem - any takers?"
No not here, Canada youy might convince me of, Mexico no thanks, in fact I wonder if they want southern California back
Never. The closest that we have come to it was during our national expansion westward. Texas was the only sovereign nation that voluntarilly joined the union, and there were other formal colonies of other nations which made the transition; such as the southwestern states (former Mexican territories), Puerto Rico, Louisina, and Florida. But, if that is the grand scheme of things, then so be it, but they have to go the whole 9 yards and not just pick off a few favors.
Haven't they screwed up enough stuff?
Perhaps. Then again, if we had the gumption to take Mexico, I'm sure we will have no problems telling the enviro-nut cases to find a short pier and take a long walk.
Splash!
"The United States, Canada and Mexico should establish a common security perimeter to guard against terrorism in North America"
Mexico can't seem to keep their own country in order.
OK. I want Park Place and Boardwalk then. Oh. And Banff and Whitesprings.
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