I received a BA in Latin American Studies from the University of Miami in 1990. My concentration was on paramilitary and terrorist groups. I went to work in Washington, DC after that working in counterterrorism. I got first hand experience with terrorism when I was an exchange student in Bogota, Colombia in 1988 during the height of the drug wars. Pablo Escobar and other cartel leaders were at the height of their power. Terrorist and para-military acts happened pretty much every day. Colombia was in a bloody drug war and it was hemorrhaging. It developed into a military state. Military squads would march through the streets stopping cars, checking buildings, and looking for potential terrorists by stopping pedestrians. They put them spread up to a wall and perform a search and then ask to see their government ID which had to be carried at all times. In doing these stops they definitely used racial profiling. People don't realize there was a racially based class system for a long time in Colombia. First were white, next were moreno (a little brown mixed), then Indios (indigenous population of Indians), and last came black Colombians. I learned the lessons of their profiling pretty quickly. If I were out on the street with white friends from school I was never stopped. It was a different story when I went out with my Colombian boyfriend who was moreno. Almost every day, we would be stopped. They weren't very concerned with me. I'm very fair skinned with blue eyes and blonde hair. With my command of the language, I was often mistaken for Argentinian. I offered them a copy of my passport for i.d. But my boyfriend was always searched for drugs and weapons.
I didn't mind the stops because I knew how prevalent and dangerous the terrorists and paramilitary groups were. I sacrificed some of the civil liberties I was accustomed to in exchange for feeling safe.
Terrorism has come to US soil. ISIS are just the newest bullies on the block. They show their abductions and beheadings as messages to America. We know some ISIS related incidents have already happened here. It's no longer some other country's problem. They are at our back door.
America is at a cross roads deciding how many rights we're willing to give up in order to stop ISIS. It's like how you used to leave your doors unlocked at night. You could sit outside after dark without worry. Those times are gone. Now we lock our doors, we have security systems, panic buttons and think twice before venturing out late at night. We've sacrificed freedoms to stay safe from crime. Americans need to accept that the time has come that some civil liberties will have to be infringed upon to keep our nation safe.
We are no longer able to accept all the world's tired and weary. We need to lockdown our borders and I'm sorry folks but we need to keep out muslims from countries where muslim insurgents are active. We need to investigate and possibly deport those already here who could be parts of a sleeper cell. I accept that homeland security moniters internet traffic, chat rooms, blogs, and even private emails and credit card transactions while looking for terrorists. I have nothing to hide. It's like everything in life. There's no black and white to the issues and sometimes trade offs have to be made.
I also think that boots on the ground, raids, and air attacks against the ISIS cells we can find has to be increased. These terrorists are not soldiers of a government military who follow codes of conduct or the Geneva convention. They are cowards for attacking the innocent and they will not stop unless we kill or imprison them all. As far as i know, they still have some room down in Guantanamo Bay. With possible insurgents who are already here, they should be guilty until proven innocent. How many 9/11s have to happen before we wake up stand up and use force here in the US to say no more, never again.
I hope our next president will be one who stomps ISIS and other groups out of existence by any means necessary.
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