The chorus of recent endorsements for Senator John McCain (RINO-AZ), designed to underscore his purported conservative credentials and convince “wayward” conservatives to close ranks behind his candidacy, have been punctuated by more strident voices who insinuate that the ongoing threat of Islamofascist terrorism should compel those unconvinced of McCain’s allegiance to Reagan’s principles that voting against him or sitting out the November election in a fit of pique are tantamount to turning a blind eye to Al-Qaeda.

NRO’s The Corner runs this pithy piece of Victor Davis Hansen’s:

Recently, Al-Qaeda terrorist, Abu Maysara, a senior adviser to Abu Ayyoub al-Masri, was killed, and his translated diary reveals profound Al-Qaeda depression at its dramatic recent battlefield defeats and the loss of the hearts and minds of Iraqis to their Americans and Iraqi allies. Nonetheless, Speaker Pelosi now assures us of the surge that “There haven’t been gains …The gains have not produced the desired effect… This is a failure. This is a failure.”

I have the greatest respect for Professor Hansen, read his columns regularly, and several books of his sit on the shelves of my personal library. But terrorism comes in many forms and guises and it’s not limited to the virulent forms of Islam.

Why rally to John McCain, who aligned himself with liberal Senate icon Ted Kennedy in a failed attempt to pass so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation — i.e., amnesty and a path to citizenship for 20 to 38 million illegal aliens afoot in our land — without so much as a thought given to the grave implications for Americans of porous borders, unsecured maritime ports, and pitifully piecemeal internal enforcement of employers who hire them and visa-holders who overstay when those visas expire.

Consider this: close to 30% of the prison population in this country is comprised of illegal aliens; over 4,000 American citizens are murdered annually by illegal aliens (take a look — please, do take a look); in Los Angeles, CA, alone, according to Heather Mac Donald, “95% of all outstanding warrants for homicide target illegal aliens” and “up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants are for illegal aliens.”

There has been a longstanding, accelerating human invasion across our southern border and the federal government and the Washington elites who claim it for their own have failed to adhere to the dictates of Article Four of the United States Constitution:

… and [The United States] shall protect each of them [the States] against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Fact is our porous borders and unsecured ports these 6+ years after the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11 belie the claim of the Bush Administration that this president has been the “Security President.” And presumptive Republican candidate for the White House John McCain has no more right to the claim that he’s eminently national security-minded than does Bush ‘43. McCain extols his virtues based upon his early endorsement of the “surge” strategy in Iraq, yet has done not a thing in the United States Senate to stop the surge of humanity across our southern border — even into his own state! If you question that statement, kindly take a look at John McCain’s Arizona (courtesy: YouTube). After all, this is the senator who now, in his final quest for the Oval Office, has only reluctantly stated that he’ll “build the goddamn fence.”

Surges, other than just those in Iraq, have implications for international terrorism too.

Here’s an excerpt from a post by ParaPundit:

Let us leave aside the fact that Bush’s immigration plan will not make the borders any less chaotic or any more lawful. The fact is that there is a huge surge happening across our southern border with Mexico and the United States government’s response is totally inadequate. Surely Al Qaeda must have noticed by now that the US border with Mexico is poorly policed and that many Middle Easterners could sneak across it without even getting spotted by any Border Patrol agents.

He goes on to link to this seminal essay by Mark Krikorian, which I encourage you to read if you think there’s no linkage between porous borders and international terrorism. And as The Phyllis Schlafly Report properly argues (with my emphasis added):

The terrorists are foreigners, most or all of whom should not have been allowed to live in our country. As FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted, at least some of the hijackers were “out of status,” i.e., they had no proper immigration documents. It should be repeated over and over again: The terrorism threat is from illegal aliens who are allowed to live in our midst — and this is a failure of our immigration laws and our immigration officials.

The criminals who were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, of the murders in front of the CIA headquarters in 1993, and who were involved in a 1998 plot to bomb New York’s subway system were Middle East aliens who should not have been in the United States. They were either granted a visa that should never have been issued or had overstayed a visa and should have been expelled. The 1996 Khobar Towers bombings, the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen were all carried out by radical Middle East groups.

Since easy access into the United States has been repeatedly exploited by aliens bent on terrorism, it should have been no surprise that it was used by the World Trade Center/Pentagon hijackers.

The policy of opening our borders to anyone who wants to sneak into our country illegally — or to remain illegally after entering legally — must be exposed and terminated. This is the most important security precaution our government must take.

Take a look also at this post of Frank Laughter’s at Common Sense Junction or of this one at Immigration Watchdog (as well as this one) and tell me if terrorism is bred only in the Middle East and that fighting it exclusively overseas truly keeps us from having to confront it here at home, as President Bush claims and John McCain agrees. If you’ve bought into that propaganda, you’ve been misled.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) knows what’s best for America, as reported by The Dan Stein Report: follow the “Rule of Law” and get the double-layer border fence, mandated by the Secure Fence Act of 2006, built.

Our nation’s greatest and most obvious vulnerability remains our porous and unprotected southern land border. Yet every day, unknown numbers of human and drug smugglers, criminals and potential terrorists continue to illegally enter the United States through our border with Mexico. The exposure of our southern border demands that we take immediate action to implement the most effective enforcement mechanisms available. And while technology and manpower are an important part of this effort, the best and most effective method of preventing illegal foot and vehicle traffic from entering the United States is border security fencing …

Neither George W. Bush as a two-term Republican president, nor John McCain as a two-term Republican member of the House of Representatives and a four-term member of the United States Senate, thought this necessary and look at the terrible consequences of what their gross indifference to and deplorable advocacy of an open borders’ policy has done for America.

Bottom-line, don’t be too quick to embrace John McCain.

Indeed, be mindful of what David J. Stoddard has written, if you’re contemplating closing ranks behind John McCain and particularly on the strength of George W. Bush’s endorsement:

After 9/11, America staggered in shock.

Meanwhile, Mexico fully expected the U.S. Government to secure our southern border. For roughly three months the human traffic over our Mexican Border slowed to a mere trickle while people waited to see what America was going to do.

After it became apparent that real security measures were only taken against our own citizens, the Mexican Border traffic resumed with an unprecedented intensity. After all, illegal aliens, particularly illegal Mexican aliens, don’t present a threat to U.S. Citizens. Do they?

Read newspapers from all over the country. You’ll see stories of drunken illegal aliens driving automobiles into innocent citizens. Other stories tell of murders, rapes, robberies, child molestations, home invasions and illicit drug deals. Illegal aliens are selling poison on our streets, killing our police officers, murdering our citizenry and then fleeing back to Mexico where they are coddled and even celebrated. The U.S.-Mexico Border is no more secure today than it was on 9-11.

Why were they allowed to enter and remain in America? It is because of the total lack of enforcement of our perfectly good immigration laws. While it is true that some illegal aliens may have come with the benign intent of finding a job and working, it is equally true that it is against the law. Our politicians wink. The cheap labor lobby smirks. The common citizen pays the bill in blood and money.

How many citizens have been victimized over the last two decades of neglect on our borders?

Follow-Up: Michelle Malkin quotes Andy McCarthy on why you should not allow the McCain sycophants (my choice of words) to marginalize you for not throwing your arms around this self-styled conservative.

Follow-Up II: Mark Krikorian, writing for NRO, provides a key insight into the likelihood of McCain persisting in his penchant for kow-towing to Mexico’s interests in perpetuating the illegal emigration of its poor, uneducated, and criminal element to the United States. An excerpt:

The contempt for American citizenship that McCain has shown by naming this political bigamist to a post in his campaign isn’t even the whole problem. One might also ask how McCain could even consult with a person of such extreme views, let alone name him Hispanic outreach director. McCain’s support for amnesty and accelerated mass immigration is bad enough, but you can, at least in theory, be for those things and still support firm borders and patriotic assimilation.

But McCain’s Hispanic outreach director is a man who has spent years opposing the very legitimacy of America’s borders and Americanization in the most public way possible. The man has been on every TV-news show in creation rejecting as passé the very idea of sovereign borders and patriotic assimilation into the American mainstream. (Digger’s Realm has compiled a greatest-hits video.)

Read it all.

Follow-Up III: And here’s a well-thought litany of why one voter is not buying into John McCain’s brand of conservatism (courtesy of Free Republic).

Follow-Up IV: Shall we get bogged down in legal semantics on the differences between “crime” and “terrorism” or shall we accept intuitively that the following is most definitely a form of terrorism and that both the victims and the friends and loved ones of the victims have indeed been terrorized?

Organized, well-financed and violent Mexican kidnapping cells are targeting a growing number of U.S. citizens visiting communities popular with San Diegans and other California residents.

Last year, at least 26 San Diego County residents were kidnapped and held for ransom in Tijuana, Rosarito Beach or Ensenada, local FBI agents overseeing the cases said yesterday. In 2006, at least 11 county residents had been kidnapped in the three communities.“Some of the 26 were recovered, some were hurt and some were killed,” said agent Alex Horan, who directs the FBI’s violent-crime squad in San Diego.

“It’s not a pleasant experience. Victims have reported beatings, torture and there have been rapes. . . . Handcuffs and hoods over the head are common,” he said.

And what of the dreaded MS-13 gang — would their rampant violence constitute a form of terrorism? Need more examples? Apparently, John McCain does. Recall this …

Sen. McCain voted against the Cornyn Amendment (SA 1184) to S. 1385 to establish a permanent bar for gang members, terrorists, and other criminals. The Cornyn Amendment would have permanently barred from admission into the United States, and denied immigration benefits (including legal status under the amnesty in this bill), to: (1) absconders (i.e., aliens already ordered deported); (2) aliens deemed inadmissible or deportable as security risks (e.g., terrorists); (3) aliens who fail to register as sex offenders; (4) aliens convicted of certain firearms offenses; (5) aliens convicted of domestic violence, stalking, crimes against children, or violation of protection orders; (6) alien gang members; and (7) aliens convicted of at least three DUIs. The Cornyn Amendment failed by a vote of 46 to 51.

Some “conservative” Republican McCain is!

Follow-Up V: Senator McCain’s all-too-convenient (and not necessarily credible), but belated interest in securing our borders sure wasn’t around in 2004 when this was published (my emphasis added):

Colonel Anderson says these Special Interest Aliens originate in the Middle East or Northeast Asia. They travel through Spain to what’s called the tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, then, to Mexico City.

They pay to learn Spanish language skills, and by the time they reach the U.S., they’re acting and talking like Mexicans to fool border agents.

And, Anderson says, they’re entering the United States right through our backyard. “This is the main alley. It’s called “Cocaine Alley” or “Terrorist Alley.” Whatever you want to call it, Arizona is the prime place.”

Cochise County is the center. It’s the point of gravitus, center of gravity for all illegals,” says Anderson.

Anderson says some Special Interest Aliens are well-funded. paying tens of thousands of dollars to be smuggled into this country. They manage to get passports from non-terrorist nations.

And here’s the shocking part: if they are caught, they are often released on their own recognizance, never to be seen again.

According to Retired Border Patrol Agent David Stoddard, “There are Middle Easterners coming across the border as we speak.”

Isn’t it fair to say that John McCain has either been indifferent to the threat or asleep-at-the-wheel as a member of the United States Senate from Arizona — a border state no less?

Follow-Up VI: And this column from Michelle Malkin, published by FIRE Society:

After spearheading a disastrous, security-undermining illegal alien amnesty bill last year with Teddy Kennedy, “straight-talking” GOP Sen. John McCain claims he has seen the light. In TV appearances, he vows to put immigration enforcement first. On the campaign trail, he offers a perfunctory promise to strengthen border security and emphasizes the need to restore Americans’ trust in their government’s ability to defend the homeland.

“I got the message,” he told voters in South Carolina. “We will secure the borders first.”

But how can McCain cure citizens’ distrust when his own credibility on the issue remains fatally damaged? He doesn’t believe his own election-year spin. And he knows we know it. This is cynicism on steroids with a speedball chaser.

Not all of us have forgotten how the short-fused Arizona senator cursed good-faith opponents in his own party (”F**k you!” and “Chickensh*t” were the choice words he had for Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn during a spat over enforcement provisions). Not all of us have forgotten that he voted against barring felons from receiving amnesty benefits under his plan. Not all of us have forgotten the underhanded, debate-sabotaging manner in which McCain/Kennedy/Lindsey Graham/Harry Reid conspired to ram their package down voters’ throats.

His admission of the shamnesty failure is grudging and bitter. While he now tells conservative voters what they want to hear about the need to build the southern border fence, he takes a contemptuous tone toward physical barriers when talking to businessmen. “By the way, I think the fence is least effective,” he told executives in Milwaukee, according to a recent Vanity Fair profile. “But I’ll build the goddamned fence if they want it.” Straight talk? Try hate talk.

Follow-Up VII: This from William Gheen, who heads ALIPAC:

A McCain win will not stop the escalating problems from illegal immigration. Each day, more Americans will be murdered by illegal aliens. More atrocities will befall American citizens, more jobs and wages will be lost, more tax dollars will be stolen from us, and more illegal aliens will be in our face making demands of us, especially with the coming visit of Mexican President Calderon who comes to address his citizens on America soil.

Follow-Up VIII (02/12/08): I really like this post of Carol Platt Liebau’s, in which she makes the following incisive observation:

Andrew McCarthy astutely points out a strange and disturbing phenomenon: The penchant of McCain supporters to antagonize the conservatives McCain must win over in order to have any shot at the presidency.

Some, it seems clear, are simply national-security-before-all-else people, and for them, McCain’s serial apostasies on campaign finance, immigration, the Bush tax cuts, treatment of terrorists and the rest don’t matter. They can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that good people might sincerely and vociferously object to elements of the McCain record that seem largely immaterial to them. Those people just need to wake up and realize that they’re doing their man no favors by questioning the good faith of those who disagree with him, and them.

But I suspect there are a fair number of others who are not only supporting McCain, but trying to use him to win an internecine struggle within the Republican Party — and those people are antagonizing conservatives on purpose.