by Andrew J. Bacevich – American Conservative Magazine
Nothing so clearly reveals the impoverished state of American political discourse as the ongoing debate over finding “a way forward” in Iraq. Broadly speaking, that debate pits a resurgent foreign-policy establishment, led by James Baker, against embattled neoconservatives, with Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute their improbable champion. On the surface, Baker and Kagan represent irreconcilable views. Beneath the surface, they are engaged in a common enterprise: deflecting attention from the contradictions that beset U.S. policy in the Middle East. Baker, the trusted Bush family factotum, resurfaced most recently as co-chair, along with former Congressman Lee Hamilton, of the Iraq Study Group. Almost without fail, media references to the Baker-Hamilton commission emphasize its bipartisan composition as if that alone were enough to win a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval…

Accuracy in Media
There are approximately 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States. This staggering statistic, rarely mentioned by the media, was revealed in a study by Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. “It is clear,” she says, “that the U.S. public faces a dangerous threat from sex predators who cross the U.S. borders illegally.” What’s more, she adds, “Then they gradually commit worse crimes and are continually released back into society or deported. Those who were deported simply returned illegally again.” Yet, the Bush Administration is embarked on a controversial and secretive plan to effectively erase U.S. borders and establish a North American Union to facilitate the flow of people and goods from Mexico into the U.S. The study investigated 1,500 cases of “serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides, and child molestations committed by illegal immigrants…

Spiegel Online

El Presidentes Bush and Calder working together to build their “road” — the NAFTA Highway

Here’s what the President had to say about illegal immigration. Feel free to post comments on this, and more here…

by Congressman Ron Paul [R-TX]
Former President Carter’s new book about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine has raised the ire of Americans on two sides of the debate. I say “two sides” rather than “both sides,” because there is another perspective that is never discussed in American politics. That perspective is the perspective of our founding fathers, namely that America should not intervene in the internal affairs of other nations. Everyone assumes America must play the leading role in crafting some settlement or compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Jefferson, Madison, and Washington explicitly warned against involving ourselves in foreign conflicts. The conflict in Gaza and the West Bank is almost like a schoolyard fight: when America and the world stand watching, neither side will give an inch for fear of appearing weak…

by The Chambersburg Public Opinion
Some in attendance on Saturday were local officials from other states that are trying to enforce laws to help curb illegal immigration. “I’ve basically echoed what he (Barletta) says when he asks ‘what part of illegal don’t you understand’,” said Ted Hochstein, a member of the Herndon, Va., planning commission. “We’ve (Herndon) gone from having one housing inspector to having seven inspectors in recent years because of overcrowding issues caused by illegal immigration. We’re dealing with a lot of issues that Hazleton’s dealing with.” Herndon council members recently voted to require contractors to certify that their employees are in the country legally, Hochstein said. He said the council also passed a resolution asking the Virginia General Assembly to prohibit the hiring of illegal immigrants and to grant Herndon the authority to license day-laborer sites…

While Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean reported to prison to begin long sentences, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco vacated the sentence of “Millennium Bomber” Ahmed Ressam, who was arrested near the U.S.-Canadian border and convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the century. Ressam was arrested in December 1999 in Port Angeles, Washington, when he drove off a ferry from British Columbia with a trunk full of explosives. Prosecutors said he was intent on bombing the airport on the eve of the millennium. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison after being convicted of all nine charges. But the Court of Appeals reversed his conviction on one of the charges and sent the case back to a lower court judge to issue a new sentence and explain the rationale behind the original 22-year term. Let’s see… This man crossed the border with a trunk of explosives with the intent to kill as many Americans as possible, and now the Appeals Court needs an explanation for the 22-year sentence? If an admitted terrorist caught with the goods and convicted can have his case reviewed and the lower court directed to issue a new sentence, perhaps there really is hope for Ramos and Compean after all. [See our other website at forthecause.us for more news and videos on this...]

by Louie Gilot – El Paso Times
A federal judge crushed the last hope two former Border patrol agents had to avoid prison Wednesday when she ruled this evening to deny their motion to remain free on bond until their appeals. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone found that there were no exceptional circumstances in the case that would warrant bond pending appeal for Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, court documents showed. She also denied a motion by Ramos to extend the date of his voluntary surrender by one month. Ramos and Compean are to surrender to the U.S. Marshals at 2 p.m Wednesday. Both men are married and have young children…White House Press Secretary Tony Snow declined to comment on a possible pardon at a press conference last month….

by Liza Porteus – Fox News
Two Texas Border Patrol agents who shot a Mexican drug runner in the backside on the U.S. side of the border are hoping a last-ditch pardon from President Bush will save them from serving more than a decade in prison. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean are scheduled to turn themselves in to authorities Wednesday to begin serving 11 and 12 years, respectively, for the February 2005 non-fatal shooting. Several groups, including Friends of the Border Patrol, The Minutemen and Grassfire.org, have been trying through petitions to keep the agents out of prison — through either a motion to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone to allow them to remain free on bond during an appeal or through a presidential pardon from Bush. About a dozen rallies took place across the country in support of the agents last week….

by Rep. Ron Paul [R-Texas]
Many of those opposing a troop surge are not calling for a withdrawal of our troops from the Middle East, but rather for “redeployment.” Redeployment to where? Iran? We need to return to reality when it comes to our Middle East policy. We need to reject the increasingly shrill rhetoric coming from the same voices who urged the president to invade Iraq. The truth is that Iran, like Iraq, is a third-world nation without a significant military. Nothing in history hints that she is likely to invade a neighboring country, let alone America or Israel. I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran…

by Dan Phillips – The Post Chronicle
The realists opposed the Iraq invasion from the beginning as ill conceived and unnecessary, but they were not trumpeting their opposition from the rooftops. Instead they mostly worked behind the scenes. Perhaps they wanted to keep their cards close to their vests in case the war went well, or perhaps they thought it was “undiplomatic” to be too vocal in their opposition. The group that was trumpeting its opposition from the beginning was the anti-war conservatives. It is probably a loose use of the term to describe this group as entirely paleoconservative. Many of the leading voices such as Pat Buchanan and the folks at Chronicles Magazine are self-identified paleos, but some were not. Robert Novak, who opposed the war, is a partisan Republican movement conservative icon. So is Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation…

by Justin Raimondo – AntiWar.com
As for creating chaos in the region, the U.S. military presence is doing that all by itself. Yet Pat Buchanan, someone I have enormous respect for, seems to have been particularly impressed by this argument. Commenting on the speech on MSNBC, where he is a regular these days, Pat went so far as to say that, on this basis, if he were a sitting Senator, he would vote “aye” on the surge. Pat is motivated by a desire to avert a real disaster for American interests in the region, and sees this as “Bush’s last chance” to undo what he has wrought. But there are no do-overs when it comes to war. Bad policies have bad consequences. As ye reap, so shall ye sow. It’s a principle ordained by heaven, and fully applicable to everyone on earth – Americans included. The war both Pat and I opposed is having exactly the effect we envisioned…

by Peggy Noonan – The Wall Street Journal
I had the odd and wholly unexpected experience of feeling supportive of a troop increase until I saw the president’s speech arguing for it. What a jarring, furtive-seeming thing it was. Surely the Iraq endeavor and those who’ve fought in it and put their hopes in it deserve more than collapse, withdrawal and calamity. But 20,000 more troops, who’ll start to arrive over the next few months, and we’ll press the Iraqi government to be tougher? A young journalist who is generally supportive of the president said, “So this is it? The grand strategy is to repeat a strategy they weren’t able to execute the first time they tried it?”… Pat Buchanan on MSNBC warned of what would happen if the U.S. simply withdrew or maintained the status quo: “I think the president’s gonna get this last chance, but I think it’s the last one.” There has been something gallant in the old battler who’d opposed the war taking no pleasure in the current crisis…

by Paul Moreland – The American Conservative
“Nothing further for the government,” muttered the Department of Homeland Security lawyer after an ineffectual cross examination. Miquel had just leapt through the last hoop to immigration salvation. His case had dragged on for more than a year, during which time he bounced between DHS detention facilities until he was finally stashed far enough away to deter visits by family and lawyer but still within a three-hour shackled ride back to Manhattan for court. This drama played like a thousand others unfolding across the country, and all concerned—Miquel, his naturalized wife, his three American-born children, me, and even the DHS attorney—seemed relieved to be finished. Everybody except the judge: “I have a few questions for you, sir…

by Joe Sobran – Sobran.com
Nowadays, in startling contrast to my youth, it’s very fashionable to claim to be a conservative. Back in the Sixties, conservatism was still rather a fugitive thing, and the fashion was liberalism or even radicalism. By the late Eighties, liberal had become “the L-word,” and liberals were looking for a less alarming euphemism, such as progressive. As I say, the change is startling. But have things really changed that much? Or is the change really superficial? I’m afraid the latter is the case. The airwaves are clogged with the clamorous voices of talk radio, or “squawk radio,” as I like to call it — people claiming to be conservative, though they don’t sound much like the great conservatives I grew up admiring: Bill Buckley, Frank Meyer, James Burnham, Russell Kirk, Willmoore Kendall, and Barry Goldwater, to name a few….