Guess who's coming to dinner?

Recently, Americans have divided themselves into two camps again. I guess a two-party political system does that to people. We either shout-out to support our Democrat-supplied viewpoint, or counter-argue with our Republican-supplied viewpoint. Either way, very little creative, independent thinking takes place. This time, the camps are about whether Arizona’s immigration law is: (a) a courageous response to the federal government’s failure to secure the border, or (b) a renegade, racist attempt to profile minorities that usurps federal powers. So, one camp promotes boycotting Arizona – don’t hold your conventions there, don’t buy products made in Arizona, don’t allow the Major League Baseball all-star game to be held there. At the same time, the other camp is contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to Arizona’s legal defense fund. This seems to be a lot of unnecessary energy spent on the issue, since our court system will ultimately decide the outcome anyway. But I guess it’s like rooting for your favorite soccer team in the World Cup – emotions greatly overweight common sense. Fans of sporting events also spend a lot of energy thumping their chests about which team is best. But, ultimately, the outcome of the game will determine who wins and who loses. So I’m just going to enjoy the spectacle.

What does concern me about the illegal immigration debate, is that it’s so heavily focused on racial issues and illegal workers. Yes, these are important issues for America to resolve. But they’re also distracting us from a much bigger concern. America today faces one of the most insidious enemies encountered in our brief 250-year history. And that enemy, of course, is al-Qaeda. For the past nine years we’ve been waging a “war on terror” largely focused on the middle-east and south-central Asia. Currently we are committing enormous resources (both fiscal, and American blood) to eliminating al-Qaeda from Afghanistan. And if we manage to clear Afghanistan, (outcome uncertain) our politicians in control at that time will declare “mission accomplished.” However, al-Qaeda will simply have shifted their major center of operations somewhere else. After all, there are a lot of lawless territories in this world.

Which brings me back to our immigration policy with Mexico. What good does intense screening of passengers at airports do in preventing terrorist entry to the U.S.? They can simply walk across the border by the hundreds from Mexico. Do we think al-Qaeda leadership is so stupid they haven’t already figured this out? Do we think that the drug and human trafficking cartels of northern Mexico aren’t perfect allies for the strategic interests of al-Qaeda? We are exposing ourselves to perhaps the greatest threat to national security in American history, and we don’t seem to care. But I will guarantee this much: when the next major terrorist attack happens in America, (and it will), everyone will once again be playing the blame game. The mayhem, loss of life, collapse of our financial markets, and all the other side effects, will need to be pinned on some scapegoat who failed to prevent it. But the primary cause will be our collective lack of attention to an uncontrolled border. When will we learn that we create our own destiny by the wisdom or foolishness of our own decisions?