White House Riding In NAFTA Superhighway Fast Lane(Duncan Hunter stands tall, as usual)

Home White House Riding In NAFTA Superhighway Fast Lane By: Joe Murray, The Bulletin 08/17/2007 Email to a friendPost a CommentPrinter-friendly Advertisement

There is no doubt we live in dangerous times, as news organizations constantly remind Americans about the danger every day. From dog food to action figures to baby bibs, China is sending a steady stream of lead-laced goods into our country and into our homes. The fact that Chinese goods fly into our markets with ease and America buys 30 percent of China's exports is not cause for alarm; it is a cause to celebrate the global marketplace. Then you have Iraq. Americans are reminded by the White House on a regular basis - usually when there is a dip in the already dismal polls - that America is fighting over there so we don't have to fight over here. Fair enough. The threats of car bombings, suicide bombers and rouge terrorist cells are a real threat to the safety of U.S. troops and the security of the Iraqi people. Because these incidents of terror undermine the security of Mesopotamia, the U.S. has been working diligently to secure the Iraqi-Syrian border. Why has border security become such a key issue in Iraq? That is a no-brainer: The U.S. has learned that a porous border allows terrorists to sneak into Iraq and target U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. Thus, to fight terrorism, one needs a secured border. This is not rocket science; it's common sense. So why hasn't the Bush administration bestowed the same courtesy to the American people? As U.S. troops patrol the Iraqi-Syrian border to protect Baghdad, the White House has been knee deep in hush-hush negotiations with Mexico and Canada to build a 12-lane superhighway stretching from Monterrey, Mexico, to Winnipeg, Canada. This highway, being dubbed the NAFTA Superhighway, will stretch from Laredo, Texas, to Duluth, Minn., before crossing into Canada. The highway will cut through America's heartland, passing through cities such as Dallas, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas City, Des Moines and Minneapolis. It will be a red carpet for the Mexican trucking industry. What does this NAFTA Superhighway mean for the American people? According to GOP presidential hopeful and California Congressman Duncan Hunter (the man who successfully added an amendment barring federal funds from being spent on NAFTA Superhighway negations), the highway is the fast lane to national insecurity. "The proposed NAFTA Superhighway presents significant challenges to our nation's security [and] the safety of vehicle motorists and will likely drive down wages for American workers," Hunter said. "Much like NAFTA, the superhighway is designed to serve the interests of our trading partners and will lead to neither security nor prosperity." Hunter hit the nail on the head. This highway is the ultimate illustration of how free trade fanaticism blinds rational people to the realities of governing - and protecting - a nation. It is the difference between seeing the United States as a collection of citizens and seeing it as a collection of consumers. Those supporting this superhighway argue that it is the natural extension of NAFTA, as it creates an infrastructure that will permit the free flow of goods from the heart of Mexico to the depths of Canada. It will create land ports in the American Midwest and will ultimately result in the reduction of costs - the free trade Holy Grail. This theory would be fine if the leaders of this nation were not sworn to protect its citizens. This highway is much more than a road; it is a welcome mat for scores of Mexican and Canadian truckers to cross the border in "Fast Lanes" and share the same roadways as your family. To date, the government has no way of knowing whether these drivers are felons, convicts or drunkards. And given the record of the federal government on tracking illegal immigrants, odds are that we will never know who these truckers are. And as for cargo inspection, there are loopholes so big a Mac truck could be, and will be, driven through them. If this highway is completed, importers of foreign goods can easily evade U.S. customs inspections (as well as fees) by shipping their goods to Canada or Mexico, loading them on a truck, and placing that truck on the NAFTA Superhighway. And for those who doubt the whether this highway will ever be built, it is important to know that construction is already underway in Texas. While officials say a NAFTA Superhighway does not exist, one merely has to ask why Laredo, a city of 231,470, would need a 12-lane highway. The rush to Wal-Mart cannot be that intense. It is clear that this highway is not just an extension of some foolhardy free trade ideology; it's one of the final steps in creating a North American Union. It also presents a direct threat to the security of this nation. One would think the man who has spent six years fighting a war on terror would understand this simple fact. Joe Murray can be reached at jmurray@thebulletin.us.

There is no doubt we live in dangerous times, as news organizations constantly remind Americans about the danger every day.

From dog food to action figures to baby bibs, China is sending a steady stream of lead-laced goods into our country and into our homes. The fact that Chinese goods fly into our markets with ease and America buys 30 percent of China's exports is not cause for alarm; it is a cause to celebrate the global marketplace.

Then you have Iraq.

Americans are reminded by the White House on a regular basis - usually when there is a dip in the already dismal polls - that America is fighting over there so we don't have to fight over here. Fair enough.

The threats of car bombings, suicide bombers and rouge terrorist cells are a real threat to the safety of U.S. troops and the security of the Iraqi people. Because these incidents of terror undermine the security of Mesopotamia, the U.S. has been working diligently to secure the Iraqi-Syrian border.

Why has border security become such a key issue in Iraq? That is a no-brainer: The U.S. has learned that a porous border allows terrorists to sneak into Iraq and target U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. Thus, to fight terrorism, one needs a secured border. This is not rocket science; it's common sense. So why hasn't the Bush administration bestowed the same courtesy to the American people?

As U.S. troops patrol the Iraqi-Syrian border to protect Baghdad, the White House has been knee deep in hush-hush negotiations with Mexico and Canada to build a 12-lane superhighway stretching from Monterrey, Mexico, to Winnipeg, Canada.

This highway, being dubbed the NAFTA Superhighway, will stretch from Laredo, Texas, to Duluth, Minn., before crossing into Canada. The highway will cut through America's heartland, passing through cities such as Dallas, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas City, Des Moines and Minneapolis. It will be a red carpet for the Mexican trucking industry.

What does this NAFTA Superhighway mean for the American people? According to GOP presidential hopeful and California Congressman Duncan Hunter (the man who successfully added an amendment barring federal funds from being spent on NAFTA Superhighway negations), the highway is the fast lane to national insecurity.

"The proposed NAFTA Superhighway presents significant challenges to our nation's security [and] the safety of vehicle motorists and will likely drive down wages for American workers," Hunter said. "Much like NAFTA, the superhighway is designed to serve the interests of our trading partners and will lead to neither security nor prosperity." Hunter hit the nail on the head.

This highway is the ultimate illustration of how free trade fanaticism blinds rational people to the realities of governing - and protecting - a nation. It is the difference between seeing the United States as a collection of citizens and seeing it as a collection of consumers.

Those supporting this superhighway argue that it is the natural extension of NAFTA, as it creates an infrastructure that will permit the free flow of goods from the heart of Mexico to the depths of Canada. It will create land ports in the American Midwest and will ultimately result in the reduction of costs - the free trade Holy Grail. This theory would be fine if the leaders of this nation were not sworn to protect its citizens.

This highway is much more than a road; it is a welcome mat for scores of Mexican and Canadian truckers to cross the border in "Fast Lanes" and share the same roadways as your family. To date, the government has no way of knowing whether these drivers are felons, convicts or drunkards. And given the record of the federal government on tracking illegal immigrants, odds are that we will never know who these truckers are.

And as for cargo inspection, there are loopholes so big a Mac truck could be, and will be, driven through them.

If this highway is completed, importers of foreign goods can easily evade U.S. customs inspections (as well as fees) by shipping their goods to Canada or Mexico, loading them on a truck, and placing that truck on the NAFTA Superhighway.

And for those who doubt the whether this highway will ever be built, it is important to know that construction is already underway in Texas. While officials say a NAFTA Superhighway does not exist, one merely has to ask why Laredo, a city of 231,470, would need a 12-lane highway. The rush to Wal-Mart cannot be that intense.

It is clear that this highway is not just an extension of some foolhardy free trade ideology; it's one of the final steps in creating a North American Union. It also presents a direct threat to the security of this nation.

One would think the man who has spent six years fighting a war on terror would understand this simple fact.

Joe Murray can be reached at jmurray@thebulletin.us.

No sweat.

A little trick I learned when copying an article is to use Firefox. You can highlight the desired text, right click, and there’s a “View Selection Source” choice that will open a hew window displaying the HTML for the page, with the HTML for whatever you highlighted in the original page, highlighted. Sometimes, depending on how they do the code, you even get the images, with the text flowing around them and everything.

Usually, you can just paste directly into FR’s conposition window, but in this case the authors used < br >’s instead of < p >’s, but that’s a cinch to fix in Word. The other thing you sometimes need to massage is if they don’t explicitly give the path to image files, etc., which works on their site becasue that’s implied, but for it to work somwehere else, you need to add their site name to the image links.

Sorry for running on but it’s been helpful to me and I thought you might like using it.

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