Rethinking the European Economic Community's Open Borders

This is the first of 2 columns I will write on open borders. The first is my 2-cents regarding Europe & the next will be on the U.S.A.'s issues.

England has swiftly rounded up numerous suspects in connection with the July 21st London bombing. As expected - the names that have been released -- are not middle-aged grandmothers but Britons of Arabic descent....MUKTAR SAID IBRAHIM - 27, RAMZIi MOHAMMED & YASIN HASSAN OMAR, 24. Two other suspects have been detained in Rome, brothers OSMAN HUSSAIN & REMZI ISSAC. According to Italian police briefings, Osman fled to his brother Remzi's apartment after the bombings. They traced Osman through cell phone calls, after seeing his face on subway surveillance tapes. According to Osman's court appointed attorney, Antonietta Sonnessa, he is being interrogated in Italian & has had no need for an interpreters. Additionally, Sonnessa states that her client has reportedly told Italian investigators that "the bombers were motivated by anger over the Iraq war." He also stated that "the bombs weren't intended to be deadly." Osman is fighting extradition to England. (Here I can't fault him. I wouldn't want to leave Italy either!)

Okay, now lets get to the point... Osman Hussain was able to strike at the London transit system & then easily flee back to the safety of Italy via open borders.

Permit me to digress..... when I traveled Europe by plane, train, boat & automobile in the 1990s, passports were checked at EVERY BORDER CROSSING. You took a flight. Your passport was examined. You landed, your passport was checked. You were on a train crossing into another country, the train stopped, inspectors got on & your passport was checked. (They even woke up your tired butt if you crossed a border in the middle of the night or at the crack of dawn.) If you went to a bank, your passport was checked. Register in a hotel, before they even requested a credit card... your passport was checked.

Since the formation of the EEC, they're one big, happy open border Europe. Passport & document examinations are very lax; if they even exist outside of airport security. This is not to say that the routine examination of one's official documents is the be all & end all security solution. But it sure is a tool. (Yes, I know passports, citizenship papers, visas, etc can be forged or purchased. But it appears that the oil rich Arab countries have no trouble obtaining legal documentation particularly for educational purposes.) Europe's borders are easily bridged, like going from Long Island into Manhattan (and depending on traffic, possibly in less time). Unlike the United States, when you cross the "state line" you enter another country, with its own government, rules of law & language.

Be a united Europe with free trade & economic strength for all. But become a stronger, safer Europe with border security & vigilance. Complex issues like intelligence sharing will require a "diplomatic dance."