Speakout: Americans fighting for a future that lives up to ideals of past

Bill Winter

Published September 16, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Speakout

In his Sept. 9 Speakout column in the Rocky Mountain News, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo wrote that five years after 9/11, we must finally decide what we are fighting for. I respectfully disagree.

We already know what we're fighting for and we've known it all along. We're fighting for a future that lives up to our past, and to make sure that America means the same thing for our children that it means for us.

Let's be clear about one thing. We do not have to sacrifice our liberty to achieve security. That's a false choice and we need to demand more from our elected officials than fear meant to divide us so they can get re-elected.

The question we need to ask five years after 9/11 is not what are we fighting for, but are we safer now than we were then, and if not, why not?

Tancredo consistently tries to wrap up all the problems facing America today in one word - immigration.

That's because he's lost touch with those of us who live and work here at the regular American level. His eight years in Washington have gone to his head and he's no longer interested in representing us.

And he is simply not serious when he says his immigration crusade is about national security.

If he really cared about national security, he would be talking about the Canadian border, where we have 3,000 miles of border protected by one agent every 300 miles.

If he really cared about national security, he would be talking about our ports, where 95 percent of all containers entering this country are still not searched.

If he really cared about national security, he would be talking about our airports, where more than 50 percent of all commercial baggage checked onto airplanes is not screened at all!

If he really cared about national security, he would be talking about a federal government that insists on spying on its own citizens instead of doing the hard intelligence work that actually leads to breakthroughs.

The recent breakup of the terrorist plot by the British was not a result of wiretaps and internal surveillance. It was the result of people on the ground in Muslim countries infiltrating terrorist organizations.

The United States hardly does that kind of intelligence work anymore and we have to get it back. I want to know why we are more interested in wiretapping Americans than we are in infiltrating al-Qaida!

If Tancredo really cared about national security, he would be talking about a military that is past the breaking point. More than two- thirds of our Army brigades, both regular and reserve, are not combat-ready right now, due to shortages in manpower and equipment.

But he doesn't talk about any of these things because he isn't really interested in national security at all.

I agree with Tancredo that we are threatened from within and from without, and that we must renew our resolve to defend ourselves against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

But he misses the point and gets his struggle confused with our struggle. The problem facing America today isn't "the cult of multiculturalism" that he talks so much about.

The problem facing America today is a lack of leadership. We need more people willing to put America ahead of political partisanship and stand up for solutions and unity, instead of more fear and division.

Tancredo's message is that we should be afraid of the stranger among us. I prefer a different message, one I learned from Jesus and the Gospels, which is to treat the stranger among us as a friend and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

We can win the war on terror, and we can solve our immigration problems, but to do so we need to make sure our focus is in the right place. We need to make sure that those fighting for our security, both at home and abroad, have the resources and tools they need to do their jobs.

If we work together for a new direction that provides real security for the American people - including economic security - then we can give our kids the kind of America we all learned about in school.

And that's something worth fighting for!

Bill Winter is the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 6th Congressional District.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News