Terrorism Without Borders

The seer of the the month award has to go to Robert S. Leiken who wrote in Foreign Affairs:

Fox News and CNN's Lou Dobbs worry about terrorists stealing across the United States' border with Mexico concealed among illegal immigrants. The Pentagon wages war in the Middle East to stop terrorist attacks on the United States. But the growing nightmare of officials at the Department of Homeland Security is passport-carrying, visa-exempt mujahideen coming from the United States' western European allies.

(h/t Radioblogger)

It is very likely that when England's intelligence services sort through the evidence, they will find that no one went anywhere on a false visa -- indeed, that no one even crossed a border -- to pull of the bombing Thursday morning.

And if they are carrying English, Dutch or French passports, jihadists will pass with much more ease through U.S. Immigration than Yemini, Saudi or other Middle East Muslims who are no less lethal. Leiken says as much:

A Nixon Center study of 373 mujahideen in western Europe and North America between 1993 and 2004 found more than twice as many Frenchmen as Saudis and more Britons than Sudanese, Yemenites, Emiratis, Lebanese, or Libyans. Fully a quarter of the jihadists it listed were western European nationals -- eligible to travel visa-free to the United States.

Muslim America and Muslim Europe had best get used to the idea of official suspicion. We have Europe-bred jihadists to worry about, and no reason to think that US-bred or Canadian-bred jihadists won't be far behind.

It's too bad some rights or egos might be temporarily bruised, but at least here in America official suspicion does not result in long-term jail stays or torture. While they should appreciate and celebrate that difference, the ACLU and CAIR will keep on their blinders and do all they can to strip us of the protections we need.