By Judi McLeod
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The trigger-happy boys of al Qaeda and the Taliban must have taken time out from bomb-making practice to celebrate the conviction of border guards Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. Toppled down from what was not long ago the dignified work of the American border guard, the pair have been betrayed as sacrificial lambs in a United States of America that is getting harder to recognize for the world's most patriotic citizens: average Americans.
In the act of incarcerating its own border guards, America seems to have lost not only its way, but also its very soul. And in the end, it will be written that America lost its soul without a second terrorist attack ever having to take place on its soil.
Patriotism and heroism will now move ever so imperceptibly out of the realm of real time to the once-upon-a-time fantasies of the silver screen.
How is it possible in the USA that two border guards, one of them a former U.S. naval reservist, will be spending a total of 23 long years in prison, all for attempting to arrest one Osbaldo Adrete-Davila, an illegal alien smuggling drugs from Mexico into the U.S.?
Like the bad guy in a Clint Eastwood cowboy movie, Johnny Sutton, Western Texas U.S. Attorney, stepped into the big picture, seeming to make the Mexican drug smuggler the classic underdog.
It was a story waiting to be told in a politically correct world.
The story shifted from two border guards doing their jobs, trying to secure America's borders to a tragic tale of a down-on-his-luck social outcast running from speeding bullets with his hands up in the air.
But the switcheroo of the century comes with a terrible cost.
Treated like the hero in a badly written script, Davila had his slate wiped clean so that he could be in the pink when testifying against the story's newly minted villains.
By the time the politically correct icing was on the fruitcake, the jury heard how Ramos and Compean had caused serious bodily injury, engaged in assault with a deadly weapon, the discharge of a firearm and violated the civil rights (emphasis added) of a drug smuggler/ illegal alien, a little guy much more to be pitied than punished.
The drama played out over the Christmas season when the masses were icing their own cakes, wrapping presents and hosting family members home at last for the holidays.
Lost in this entire story is that the van Davila was driving was not held together with bubblegum but loaded down with 743 lbs. of marijuana. Lost, too is the continuing brisk drug trade taking place at the Mexican-US border.
American authorities had full compassion for Davila who was granted immunity to testify in a court of law against two loyal public servants, but none at all for Compean's wife, who is wheelchair bound or for the couples' three children, the youngest still a babe in arms. Ditto for Ramos' tearful wife and their three sons, ages 6, 9 and 13.
As Jeff Mazzella, Center for Individual Freedom, (CFIF) president so woefully puts it: "Ten lives ruined because somebody wants to globalize North America."
Authorities have constantly warned that some of the millions of illegals crossing American borders from Mexico are of the terrorist type.
In their caves, terrorists are reading all about 'America the Ridiculously Vulnerable'. Why would they worry themselves about fence possibilities when the lack of will for American Government to protect their own country is so transparent?
Happy hunting is certainly on the way.
Difficult to believe that George W. Bush, a self-professed praying man is a believer when he displays such an utter lack of conscience.
Thousands of people, who begged for mercy on behalf of their border guards, were virtually ignored.
The list of people pardoned by George W. Bush is long---113 presidential pardons to people who have served their entire sentence as of December 21, 2006 and the sentences of three people commuted, according to www.wikipedia.com.
The list of those pardoned by his predecessor Bill Clinton, treated like a brother by the Bush family, is even more shameful.
Imagine a Sandy Berger convicted for unlawfully mishandling classified documents by removing them from a National Archives reading room prior to testifying before the 9/11 commission, free at large while Ramos and Compean, just doing their jobs, are in a prison where some of the people they were paid to monitor might also languish.
Was there some kind of political strategy at play in the Ramos Compean arrests and convictions?
If that is the case, shouldn't all border guards be called back from the line of duty if doing their jobs is not what the government really wants?
Isn't it time for the Cindy Sheehan of border guards to take up the fight?
Meanwhile what the American government is doing to America is much worse than anything al Qaeda could ever accomplish.
The American government is manufacturing a society where people choose to look the other way when someone is being knifed in the subway they take to work. The American government is in this latest dark chapter is telling public servants, in effect not to try so hard.
God only knows what the troops must be thinking as they stand on guard in harm's way.
Now that patriotism has been assassinated, Uncle Sam, without a soul, is a dead man walking.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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