Neighborhood Pact

On March 23, 2005 the leaders of the United States, President George W. Bush, Mexico, President Vicente Fox and Canada, Prime Minister Paul Martin promised there would be new cooperation in the area's of defense, immigration and trade. When I first read the article I found that in I figured the citizens of the United States were in trouble. The three leaders announced their neighborhood pact at Baylor University. They say the pact will make trade more efficient and borders more secure, but it won't obstruct business or traffic. Bush said the three countries have a lot of trade with each other and they intend to keep it that way. He went on to say,"I intend to make our borders more secure and facilitate legal traffic." Associated Press Writer, Deb Riechmann's article, U.S., Canada, Mexico Vow New Cooperation points out the fact that neither Canada nor Mexico backed the United States when the war with Iraq began. It also says that Mexico would like to see the United States change it's immigration policies. It mentions the Bush administration suspecting al-Qaida agents may be crossing the border out of Mexico and coming into the United States. It goes on to tell that Fox is complaining about American citizens patrolling the Mexico/Arizona border. Also discussed at the meeting were the issues of Canada refusing to be a part of a missile defense shield and Mexico's 20% tax on soft drinks containing high-fructose corn syrup from the United States.

When I was growing up neighbors were close, they watched out for each other, it doesn't sound to me like that is what is going on here. Fox's idea of changing our immigration policies would be for us to open our borders. If there are al-Qaida agents in Mexico that would make things much easier for them. I do like one thing Bush said in the AP article, part of it anyway, "I intend to make our borders more secure and facilitate legal traffic." I'd suggest we take that one step at a time. Let's start with making our borders more secure. There are a couple of ways we could do that, I think I mentioned them in a previous blog. Put our military on our borders, a lot of the countries that claim to be our friends or neighbors are doing that with their borders. Another idea would be to allow United States citizens to volunteer to patrol our borders, I know there are some that would be willing to give some time, check out, www.minutemanproject.com .

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.